Gaining Experience by Bailey

Gaining Experience by Bailey - August 2019 Scholarship Essay

There is a big stigma in our society that taking a gap year is irresponsible, lazy, or a 'trap', that once you stop going to school you will never go back. Yet, none of these assumptions are true. I believe that a gap year can be very helpful for people. It can be used to focus on work and earning money, to take a break from hard academics, or to explore the world and what it has to offer. I am currently attending the University of Kansas and I am majoring in chemistry and my dream career is to work in a lab and conduct experiments on the cure for cancer. For me, if I were to take a gap year, I would use in on order to work in a lab and gain more work experience.

Cancer has greatly impacted my life, most recently with the death of my grandmother in March. Being able to participate in research is something I have always strived for. Ever since I was little, science was always interesting and consecutively my favorite subject. Once I was at the high school level, I was able to take chemistry for the first time. I have a booming curiosity of how the world works on a microscopic level and I finally had gotten the chance to dive into that. I found those classes very intriguing and found that they only fueled my passion for science. After attending two years of college so far, I have continued to take chemistry classes, which have included labs. I have gotten the chance to familiarize myself with the environment, equipment, and skill set needed to be a good researcher. However, being able to engulf myself in that work and dedicate my time to gaining more real life experiences/knowledge, that to which a lecture hall could not give me, then would provide a much better understanding of how conducting research really works. Also, once I get my foot in the door and start making those connections with other researchers, that will make it much easier in the future to excel in that career.

Even though a gap year has some bad opinions attached to it, it can serve very useful for many people. If I were to take gap year, I would use it to enhance my work skills in the lab and to make connections with other researchers so I can start on my path to my future career.