Gap Years: Important Now More Than Ever
How a year away from school can teach you more than the classroom
I’m a huge proponent of the gap year. For those unfamiliar, a gap year is most commonly referred to as a year break between your senior year of high school and your freshman year of college. This shouldn’t be the be-all end-all if you’ve already passed this timeline. In fact, by the very nature of a gap year, restricting it only to a certain period in your life is quite contradictory.
I took a gap year during the middle of my freshman year of college, which you can read about here, but to spare you the agony of reading my self-reflection, I’ll summarize. I was studying at the University of San Diego, and then left to pursue a career that didn’t require higher education. I was never big on school, and felt like my time was being wasted.
2016 was spent working in the esports (professional gaming) industry. Now getting paid to play video games all day may sound like a dream come true, but as with most things, there are negatives. I never enjoyed the industry’s culture, and the intense hours isolated me from the rest of my friends living a “normal” life in college.
So I’m back in school. Big deal, right? I didn’t achieve any career milestones, or come any closer to getting a degree. To me though, I learned more in 2016 than in all my previous years put together. Not because I found out what I wanted in my career, but rather because I learned what I didn’t want.
We’ve become so goal-oriented in our careers that we often forget: it’s sometimes more important to find out what doesn’t matter to you — what you don’t want. Once you know you don’t want something, you can remove any trace of it from your life.
Gap years are perfect for this. There’s no cookie cutter outline for what it has to be. Some people travel, or volunteer. Where I’m from, it was common for people to work part-time and go to the local community college. The most important thing is to try something that you haven’t experienced before, be it a pre-existing interest or something new entirely.
The only way to mess up a gap year is to not do anything at all. Recruiters will notice that you took time off, which is the primary concern most people (especially your parents) will mention when trying to dissuade you from taking one. Getting a job is still the first priority, college or otherwise, and if you spent your gap year sitting around playing video games (what kind of idiot would do that?) then it will reflect poorly in your interview.
On the contrary, a well-spent gap year can be a fantastic talking point during an interview. You have a full year of experience in the “real” world, which is an entire year more than your competition for entry level positions.
Depending on what you do during your gap year, it could even lead to a full time position after college. Akiima Price volunteered with the Student Conservation Association during a break from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and they hired her full time once she graduated. You can read more about her gap year, as well as many others, here. While all of these people have different experiences with their gap years, the feelings are the same. None of them regret their gap year, and feel that it prepared them for the real world.
Need a few ideas on what to do during a gap year? Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Work: College is expensive. Working lets you save money for school, and put experience on your resume that you can talk about in interviews.
- Volunteer: Plenty of students decide to spend a semester abroad volunteering in places such as Africa and South America. If you don’t feel like going abroad, you can also work in the US through programs like Americorps.
- Travel: Traveling is a great way to get a new perspective on life. Seeing how people live differently than yourself can help give you an idea of how you want to live your life.
- Study: If you just want to slow down and not pay insane college tuition rates for awhile, studying at a local community college may be right for you. It’s a good opportunity to get some gen-eds out of the way, or if you want to explore some different interests before declaring your major.
Do you have your own gap year experiences? What would you do? We’d love to hear from you .
Hauk Nelson is a student by day, and also an intern during the same day. He is still an avid gamer, much to the chagrin of his parents and friends. He manages email marketing, content creation, and sales prospecting at TransparentCareer. You can reach him at HaukNelson@gmail.com
