Mom let me know of a super longtime family friend whose son is thinking of gapping (while using my instagram as evidence???) So I’m meeting them for coffee tomorrow and wanted to think quickly about what I’d do in hindsight.
- know what opportunity cost is. if you’re getting paid $200k/yr instead of university, the opportunity cost of university is $800k. if you’re not getting paid, the opportunity of a gap year is $100k (or whatever your expected graduate income is). if you’re not making $100k, don’t consider your income to be “income”.
- But, if you have a “free option”, ie, if you can try a job for a year and still have the option of going back to school if you don’t like it, this is one of the best usages of gap years imo
- therefore, it has to help you make a decision — imo, for MOST professions, it doesn’t really make sense to take a gap year to “travel” or to “discover yourself” or something like that (because you’ll always have time to do this, maybe with the exception of doctor, etc.) It should be to make a decision whether that’s:
- you want to upgrade/apply to different/new schools and have a reasonable expectation you’ll do better
- you want to drop out fully and not go to university at all
- a unique, ephemeral opportunity (you have a job offer at a super new fast growing startup and you’d get less equity if you joined later, sports at a high level, etc.)
- DO NOT psyop yourself into thinking that you are doing one of these, when you are in fact doing something else!
- GENERALLY also don’t do it for finding what you want to do; that’s the whole point of university and I believe you’ll have better profession discovery in university than on a gap year (a lot more resources are accessible)
- don’t be afraid of disappointing people. generally nobody giving you advice will know your situation/industry as well as you (unless they’re explicitly in it). this includes your parents, aunt/uncle, etc. they’re going to be disappointed, but disappointing people is practically a rite of passage in creating a life that’s yours, rather than one your parents, family, friends, or even a younger, more conditioned version of yourself might have imagined for you.
- I didn’t even really think about this when I did it since I’d already had 2 “gap years” courtesy of COVID, but, are you driven enough? are you hungry enough? and arguably… neurotic enough? You’ll probably have different fuel/driver than you initially did at school; assume there’s no more camaraderie, assume there is no more competition.
In short, why now? What can you do now, with the gap year, that you can’t do after you graduate? What’s your edge?
It’s important to think about how meritocratic what you want to be doing is, and if it’s quite meritocratic, be honest with yourself with how good actually are you? Is that where your comparative advantage lies?
For me, it was more a decision of college being a RISKIER decision than a gap year; I might not get into UBC CS first year, for all I know. The road less travelled is being a dropout, and it’s pretty hard to argue it’s way way “harder” (though it doesn’t feel like work when it’s enjoyable). I hate how “glorified” it is these days.