The Transformative Uncertainty of Taking a Gap Year

If your academic aspirations involve further education after graduation, you may have to confront the question: is a gap year right for me? While that question can only be answered with substantial personal introspection, my own experiences have led me to look back with pride on how much I’ve grown over the course of my gap years. So instead of using this blog post as a way to convince you one way or another about committing to a gap year, I hope to offer you some insight into how obtaining field experience after graduating has helped me develop in a multitude of ways prior to beginning my next step: medical school. 

The irony of a gap year is that it is both a stepping-stone before your next chapter in life, and a chapter in and of itself intended to promote personal and professional growth. This irony is only further complicated if that one gap year turns into many, as mine turned into three. During one of my last undergraduate lecture courses, my professor had each soon-to-be graduate go around the room and share what our next plans were. While some of my peers were excited about transitioning into graduate school, many of us were facing a much less certain future as we pursued post-grad jobs and programs to fill our impending gap years. In that uncertainty, I realized for the first time in 16 years that my time would not be dictated by a school schedule, but rather by my own interests and goals. In this way, committing to a gap year allowed me to take agency in the direction I wanted my life to go before rooting myself to a graduate school. But in order to do that, I first had to take the time to figure out what direction that would be. Throughout my gap years, I learned to take inventory of my values, goals, skill-sets, and areas of improvement so that once I was ready for medical school, I felt much more confident in my experiences and drive. 

Since graduating, I worked as a research assistant in an HIV immunology lab in Portland, Oregon for two years prior to beginning my year of service with National Health Corps Chicago. The opportunities to gain a wide breadth of experience spanning rigorous bench research, direct patient interactions, and building community-partnerships have been invaluable to my personal and professional growth. So even amidst the uncertainty of my gap years, I realized that my growth was attributed to the time and space offered to me upon deciding to postpone graduate education. Regardless of the skills and field experience you will inevitably gain, I think this is the key benefit to taking a gap year: freedom to explore, fail, re-orient yourself, build relationships, and better understand your goals and the necessary steps to achieve them.