The Gap Year by Moisa

The Gap Year by Moisa - August 2019 Scholarship Essay

Taking a gap year would encourage me to find a job in my field of study. I would focus on growing my skills within my major and traveling with the company if allotted. My goals would be to see what other styles could offer me in architecture and put what I had learned to that point into practice. A gap year would also allow me to earn some much-needed money. Affording university is very difficult, so the extra bit of money saved up could help pay for those responsibilities. It would lower the stress on my immediate family and start to remove some of the debt that has taken form from the previous year of university. 
I would focus the beginning of my gap year on what weaknesses I have in my field. I would try to work on my weaknesses, such as creating models and learning proper drafting techniques at least three times a week. To do so, I would create a small studio space in my home, where I could create a time when I wasn’t working to make models with different materials. Making these models would help me with my hands-on craftsmanship and give me models to practice drafting. Hopefully, having made friends in my job would allow me to find people to present my practice designs too, for critics and pointers on what to work on. 

As my skill grew, I would take on the challenge of stepping forward to help on more projects that could allow that travel time. I would take the confidence in the work I had been practicing at home toward the beginning of my gap year and implementing it to my job, to show my growth. If able to show that I can do a travel-based project, I would hope to continue to get more opportunities such as that to travel to a few locations I had yet to see. Traveling is a large part of my life at the moment, so implementing that to my job in the gap year would be exciting. I would be learning so much, while also seeing what the world has in store. 

Toward the end of my gap year, I would also try to create a stronger social connection with my peers from the firm and outside of the firm. That would allow a larger social network to form for my future architectural endeavors and an opportunity to get out of the house once in a while to become available to me. This social network would also give me friends to interact with and have a life away from family and work, which is a much-needed balance in a heavy field. 

I would love to also use the gap year to keep writing my novels and self-publishing them because that could also allow some source of income coming in if any people were to purchase it.  Writing is a fun pass time and being able to showcase that would be amazing. Writing is a highly recommended skill and not everyone like to do it, but I love just taking time to sit and write or read. 

Overall, I would focus my gap year on my career and financial standing. I would use everything learned so far and practice time to grow that understanding of my major, create a network, and work on my outside passion later on. I would write my goals in the order I’d hope for them to come, but as time would progress, they would shift with what I am experiencing. I’d attempt to not plan out my life so structurally and roll with the punches along the way and make the most of my life in the end.