Carpe Annum - The Value of a Gap Year by Seamus

Carpe Annum - The Value of a Gap Year by Seamus - August 2019 Scholarship Essay

Next month, I’m transferring to college. But this month, I’m selling stickers. It was an idea, inspired by the brand Stickers Northwest, that my sister and I had come up with to promote the culture of our suburban, eastern Washington desert town. So far, I’ve sold copies of the few we’d finished working on to some of my friends and family: a cartoonish depiction of the local water towers, labeled “salt” and “pepper”; a group of tumbleweeds with gentle smiles; and a minimalist illustration of the wind farms which characteristically decorate the hills to the south of the city. Each set of stickers sold for $3.50, so we made a modest profit.

Despite our relative success, however, I still felt some regret. If only I had started earlier in the year when I had wanted to act. I could have sold it to strangers at the fair, getting the brand further and making more money! I would have felt so much more successful if I had invested more time in it, especially early on. But, too busy with schoolwork and my job, I had elected to wait until a more convenient point arrived. If I was given a gap year right now, this is exactly what I’d do: use that time to work on my sticker business.

People taking gap years would benefit from using that time to work on just one project. It doesn’t have to be a big project. It doesn’t have to be important. But it should be something that you want to do. Maybe you’ve been thinking about picking up programming, or drawing, or painting. Maybe you want to have a garden. Perhaps you’ve been dreaming of volunteering at an animal shelter. You could even want to create a YouTube channel, or a band, or, like me, you might want to start a business.

Do it.

As long as it’s something that you want to do, it’s worth it. Best case scenario, you’ll have something that gives you a reason to feel successful. When you have an example of something you’ve followed through on, it gives you and others a reason to believe you can follow through on other things again. That builds confidence. Worst case scenario, you’ll have a better idea of what you don’t want to do – which is just as important as knowing what you want to do. In either case, you’ll learn something about yourself and progress as a person. This is perhaps the most valuable benefit.

It’s true that you’re always going to be able to reinvent yourself, of course, but a gap year is sandwiched between two periods where your time will be devoted to academic study. It’s a unique time where you can mess up without, to some extent, any real consequences. The fact that you won’t be committed to academics doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be learning anything during a gap year. In fact, I would argue that it’s the best time to learn. It’s a time where you can make many mistakes, even big mistakes, without too much damage or risk. And mistakes and failure, more than anything, are learning opportunities.

So take a risk and start working on that invention, or art project, or website, whatever it is. Experiment and find out what you like. It’s hard to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life when you’re 18. It’s easier to figure out what you want to do until you’re 19 when you’re 18. So take that time to commit yourself to something that you care about.

Sometimes it feels like you’re in a period of life where you’re waiting. In high school, you’re waiting to graduate and go to college. In college, you’re waiting to graduate and get a career. And when you do finally get to that career that sounds so important, you’re just waiting for promotions until you can retire – and then what? In the words of Stig H. Johansson, “all those days that came and went, little did I know that they were life.” The most important thing you can do with your time right now is enjoy it, savor it, and take every opportunity available. Don’t forget that a gap year is a liberation many people long to have. Don’t wait for another period of life to begin, use that precious time to achieve anything you can dream.