Some time off can be a valuable thing.
It often feels like the job market is geared to benefit people who have been on a certain, rigid track for the duration of their educational and then professional lives. We dive into qualifications, project history, and extracurricular groups because we feel vulnerable if we aren’t ascertaining value to every activity, we’ve ever participated in. One could argue that this is a result of our culture internalizing the lessons of a generation of parents who structured their children’s entire upbringing around activities that could make them economically and culturally competitive, a certainly well-intentioned archetype that yielded arguably mixed results. In this context, taking a gap year can sometimes feel like a luxury that may come back to bite young people later on when they’re having to explain a non-productive blank space in an otherwise immaculate resume. When you’re putting on a suit and tie to go talk about how the Nasdaq closed high this week, it can feel awkward to know you’ll likely also end up explaining the year you spent surfing or working on a dairy farm in Ireland. I am here to give you one little piece of advice on that front: DON’T BE NERVOUS.
