3 Things I Learned on my Gap Year
Not all gap years are created equal, and they don’t always involve travelling the world with your best friends soaking up the sunshine. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get the most out of your gap year and gain new experiences that prove super beneficial to starting college and to your life in general, no matter where you are.
After choosing a course I hated in a college I hated, I wound up unhappy, unmotivated and lost. I needed time to think about what I was really interested in and what would truly make me happy, so I decided to drop out of college, take a year out for myself, with a plan of starting fresh the following September.
Here are three major things I learned during my gap year:
YOU DON’T NEED TO GO ABROAD TO HAVE A GAP YEAR
Travelling can be a huge learning curve, and gap years tend to be perfect time for a lot of people to travel the world. Unfortunately however, not everyone can afford to jet off for a year, or maybe they just don’t want to. For this reason many people go straight into college thinking that’s their only option and that a gap year isn’t for them. I’m here to tell you, that’s not the case. I didn’t travel during my gap year and instead worked at a part time job, focused on myself without the stress of homework, assignments, deadlines etc., and gave myself the space to figure out what made me happy. Gap years are all about focusing on yourself, and you can most certainly do that at home or abroad!
USE YOUR FREE TIME TO TRY NEW THINGS
During the Leaving Cert or any sort of final exams in school you might have, every ounce of free time you have is spent predominantly in school and studying. So if you do decide to take a gap year, it can often times be hard to know what to fill up all this new free time you have with. My advice is simple – do whatever you want! Your gap year is one of the only times in your life you’ll be relatively free from huge amounts of responsibility (academically and career-wise, of course), so why not fill that time up with pushing yourself to finally trying things you’ve always wanted to do? Like maybe taking an evening course up in creative writing, life drawing or even a new language? Learning new things can be scary but so worth it in the end, and learning to bite the bullet and make decisions to benefit you is a skill which will stand to you no matter what you end up doing after your gap year.
BE INDEPENDENT
Something I’ve heard a lot of people say when they start college straight from school is that they feel a little bit lost. Now, in saying that, some people jump right into college straight after school and they love it (and fair play to those people). However, it’s no secret that college can be daunting when you’re used to the routine that school involves. In my opinion, taking a gap year is an excellent way to bridge the seemingly huge jump from secondary school to college for a lot of people. It gives you the independence you need to really take initiative and get the most out of your studies as you possibly can while at college. I learned a lot during my year out but I think the most important thing was the value of being independent, and I believe this has really stood to me in my studies and my life in general.
And that brings us to the end of the three main things I learned during my gap year. Gap years can benefit people in so many ways, and are a perfect opportunity to take the time to figure out what you really want. As I’ve said, some people find the jump from school to college fine, but if you’re feeling a little lost or not sure of what you want after school (or college!) a gap year could be the first step in creating a whole new you.
Photo by Agnieszka Boeske on Unsplash
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash