Why A Gap Year?: “ Now it is time to reclaim my life.”
By Joanna Woznicka
Ever since I can remember, education has been extremely important to me. I worked hard at school, I followed the rules and listened to the teachers. I did well, and so everyone around me started expecting nothing less than that. Eventually, I started expecting nothing less of myself than my absolute best, which meant being the top of the class. That’s how I became trapped in my fear of failure. I now realise that I stopped doing things I thought I would be bad at, forgetting that to be great at something you first have to begin doing it.
At the end of year 12, I got my As exam results and I was able to apply to the universities I wanted. I didn’t get into my top choice but got offers from the others and therefore, naturally, accepted the offers from my top two choices and carried on with my life. I was fine with this arrangement until a conversation with a friend led me to the realisation that the idea of a gap year was far more exciting to me than university. I could not defer my university offer, and so I made the decision to completely withdraw it. It was terrifying and amazing. I had no job and no place I needed to be in September. It felt like a weight had been lifted.
The idea of a gap year started to appeal to me as I began making a mental list of all the things I wanted to get done over my summer and realised it was just too long. It was a list of all the things I have wanted to do in the last few years but was either too young for or just hadn’t had time. I want to be active and creative and have control over what I’m doing — I don’t want to sit with more books on my lap, sleeping in the library and stressing about grades. I realised as I was making this list that I longed to be inventive and to use both my brain and my experiences to create things. I want to play piano more, and allow myself to draw badly, and make short videos which no one will watch, and start tap dance and let myself do whatever the hell I feel like doing. I want to let my brain fly free and see if there’s any creativity left in it that education hasn’t stamped out yet.
It’s a concept that school — through most subjects — tires out of you. We memorise facts. Sometimes we memorise other people’s opinions. Occasionally we are asked for our own opinions. Very rarely are we asked to use our brains to create something new, unique and different. I noticed that when such opportunities arose when we were children, we used to jump at the chance to make something inventive and spent hours on making a project look artistic. As my friends and I grew older, such tasks started to seem childish and pointless. School and teachers had succeeded: not only did the system think our unique minds were for nothing more than memorising information, but so did we. Anything other than this seemed useless. If it’s not on the specification, it’s useless.
Only recently did I realise this was the logic I had internalised but was simultaneously trying to combat. I longed to create, but I was too afraid of failing, because when you create, there is no simple right or wrong answer.
This year, I partook in a great producing program at a theatre, where I met some amazing people and was given opportunities to help curate events and chair discussions. This, along with other small things in life, made me realise something fundamental: that I could be good at things outside of school. Simple as that. It helped me redirect my self-value from my grades to my brain. Not the parts of the brain that are and aren’t ‘tested’ in timed conditions on a piece of paper, but the way in which my brain works in real-life situations. I realised that I can actually have a successful life without amazing grades. Of course, in theory, I knew that before, but it’s an easy thing to hear and say, but much harder to feel and believe. My worth and value as a person is not dictated by a bunch of letters, and it’s been a long journey for me in realising that, just as it is a different process for each individual.
In school, you always have a structure. You know what you’re going to be doing the next day, and week, and year. The moment you enter year 8, they start pressuring you about GCSEs! A student stops being a human being. They become a machine. The moment teachers forget that students should have lives outside of school, is the moment students are reduced to memorising, empty entities. For me, taking a gap year is learning to become a human being again. This involves trying new hobbies and not ever being afraid to fail at them. In the end, if you enjoy what you are doing, no one can take that pleasure away from you.
I grew up wanting to be an adult for two reasons; the first being so that people would take me more seriously and the second because I would be able to fill my time with whatever I want. That pleasure has been taken away from me for the past 13 years. Now it is time to reclaim my life.
