Year Off… Scratch that… Year On

My name is Allison Sawyer and I’m 19 years old. Second semester of my gap year just took off and it’s taking place in the heart of San Francisco. I spent the past three months teaching English in Bali which was absolutely incredible on a number of levels, and part two has already confirmed my decision to take a gap year as well. Here’s why:

Economic researchers in Australia and the UK did a study in 2012 finding that high school students who deferred their admission to college to take a gap year went to college (after their gap year) at the same rate as students who committed to college and intended on studying there straight away. The researchers also found that taking a gap year had a significant positive impact on students’ academic performance in college. They found that students were more likely to graduate with higher grade point averages than students who graduated but did not take a gap year.

Studies like these are rarely done in the US and if they are, it’s difficult to compile a study because the percentage of students who take gap years is significantly lower than that of the students in Australia and the UK. Personally, I view this statistic as an unfortunate reality. One might say that I’m biased because I took a gap year, but regardless, this statistic is a clear representation of the fact that our society is closed-minded to the idea of doing things outside the box. We are a society that likes following structure and directions. We are afraid of doing things that deviate from cultural norms, societal expectations and most importantly, we’re entirely unwilling to put ourselves in a position that forces us outside our comfort zone.

I come from a town called Deerfield that consists of little to no diversity. Everyone has a similar upbringing, the same ethnicity, nationality and beliefs. Sure it’s nice to have people agree with you all the time and not have to worry about being different. It’s comfortable. I was most definitely comfortable. My best friends were my childhood friends and I had tons of them. To add to that, we all adored each other. My parents provided me with unconditional love and a secure upbringing to say the least.

Expectedly, my parents always planned for me to go straight to college, as did the rest of the Deerfield parents for their kids. I planned on this for myself as well because I didn’t know any different. Gap years are rarely discussed in Deerfield. I didn’t personally know anyone that had taken one, and had never heard of someone taking one at my school up until last year. This is partially due to what I mentioned previously about my generation, particularly in the US, being unwilling to do things that are uncomfortable. But it’s also a result of no one telling us it’s an option.

Spring 2016 I was talking with a cross-country teammate, Lizzie. She’s a year older than me and at the time, she was a senior committed to the University of Pennsylvania. What I didn’t know until speaking with her was that she was planning on taking a gap year with a program called “UnCollege” before attending Penn. When she told me I was utterly confused. How could Lizzie, a motivated, smart, leader do something I associated with people who were anything but ambitious? At the time I thought gap years were something people did when they had lazy attitudes towards school. I made this assumption solely based off of the fact that no one did it. My automatic instinct was negative simply because it’s outside the norm. I was slowly beginning to realize that maybe I had developed a false impression about what types of people take gap years. I wondered if possibly my environment of like-minded people had led me to have the mindset that being different wasn’t a good thing.

I looked into UnCollege and found that this was a program where young adults could travel abroad for a semester to volunteer, spend second semester in San Francisco doing workshops and finding ways to get hands-on experience doing what they’re interested in, and ultimately get an internship for the summer. Eventually I came to the realization that I was guilty of being closed-minded, and that I was bored of living a lifestyle where I just followed directions.

I asked my friends what they thought about this program and the idea of taking a gap year in general. They all discouraged it. They had the same impression I originally had. I found myself defending what Lizzie was doing and told them that after thorough research, doing something like what she did could actually be really meaningful and maybe even more valuable than sitting in a classroom environment. They were still skeptical. Despite their opinion, I didn’t want to conform to societal pressures for the sake of fitting in. I was tired of doing that.

Something clicked in that moment and I had no doubt that I should take a gap year. There were only pros in my mind. I’d finally get exposure to diversity and through that I would develop my own ideas, beliefs, and the sense of individuality I had been craving. I’d get to learn about the world and build relationships with people of different backgrounds and listen to their stories.

At the time I was set on going straight to the University of Missouri to study journalism. It was ideal: I’d learn about journalism and surely it would be beneficial given that Mizzou has one of the best journalism schools in the nation. But after reflecting I thought, what if I had a leg up before even going there? What if I could get hands-on experience with journalism such as an internship or at least shadowing publications? What was stopping me from taking an opportunity to learn outside of a classroom? The only counterargument that came to the forefront of my mind was that I shouldn’t do it because it wasn’t the norm.

When I first told my parents they were immediately opposed to the idea and their facial expressions said that they were highly concerned for me. It took a lot of convincing to get my parents to veer from Deerfield standards. But eventually, after they talked with Lizzie’s parents and actually listened to my persuasion for once, they had their “click” moment too. It became evident to all of us that taking a gap year was so far from our initial stereotypes. So here I am a year later doing what I love and vouching for gap years. I’ve already gotten an immense amount of exposure to diversity after living in Indonesia for three months. I built strong relationships with the locals there and some of my closest friends are from Australia and Mexico. I’ve already learned that I’m more independent than I gave myself credit for. I took the lead and navigated our way through the airport on a weekend trip to Singapore. Never thought that would be possible. I’ve improved upon professional skills through the workshops we’ve done in San Francisco. I’ve owned my ability to self-advocate as well as my inability to do things in a timely manner. But I’m working on it. And most importantly, I’ve discovered the power of taking risks, and that’s only a small portion of what I’ve absorbed through this experience. I took a risk and it was the best decision I’ve ever made — and I’m only at the halfway point. I’ve realized through my powerful experiences that taking an unconventional path is the only way to transform, grow and most importantly, live a little.