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Gap Year – Conversation Lesson

Joe: Hey guys, I gotta tell you about this article that I read yesterday. It was about Tulane University and how they started a program where they’re encouraging students to take a gap year. They’re really actually encouraging students to take a gap year before they even start. So let’s say you finish up high school, you get accepted to Tulane…Tulane University, they’re encouraging you to take a gap year before you start your…your studies there. And I think it said that they’re actually paying you to do but, I mean, they’re not really paying you. I think like they’re probably helping you to come up with money for, y’know, food and a place to live. But, y’know, obviously they don’t want you to take a gap year and just, y’know, be a couch potato and hang out and play video games or something. They want you to do something, y’know, like volunteer for a non-profit organization or to do something that would, y’know, make you a better, more rounded person, y’know, starting school there. And I think it’s a great idea.

AJ: Yeah, well, even a year of work would probably be good experience before school. Just, y’know, because when you think about it when someone graduates from high school they’ve spent their whole lifetime at that point, pretty much their whole lifetime, just locked in this weird world of school and education and they have no clue at all about the real world. So that’s a great idea really. Give them a year to go out and experience the world however they want to.

Kristin: Yeah, y’know, I’d never even heard that term, gap year, until I traveled and started meeting some Europeans and I think it’s very common in Europe to do it. But it’s so funny because after you sent that article, Joe, y’know, you e-mailed it…I was volunteering at the animal shelter and this kid, I say kid, he was probably, y’know 20 or 21, just started talking to me. Just really friendly and, “Hey, what’s your name, what do you do here? What do you do outside of here?” Asking me all these questions, and I started talking to him about my business and stuff, and I’m thinking “Why is he asking me this.” So I asked him, “What do you do?” and he said, “Oh, I’m a student.” But it turns out he basically wants to take time off, go to Europe, figure out what he really wants to do.

AJ: Mmm, yeah, yeah.

Kristin: So he was telling me, “I’ve been asking everybody I meet what they do for a living.” Because he’s getting his degree in international business but I don’t think it’s what he really wants to do basically.

AJ: It only took me until I was 37 to figure out what I wanted to do so he’s got plenty of time.

Joe: I mean, who knows what they want to do and what they want to study at school when they’re, y’know, 18, maybe even 17 years old. You’ve had no experience. I mean, it’s kind of ridiculous. You’re supposed to select this course of study that’s going to potentially, y’know, in many cases find you a job that you might actually have for many, many years, but you have no idea what it means to work that job.

Y’know, what you do or what your life would be like. I mean, that’s definitely what happened to me. I really wish I could have taken some time because when I first went to the university that I studied at, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And it was really only two years into my degree that I realized, “Wow! I really don’t want to do this.” But at that point I was stuck because I couldn’t afford to go to school, y’know, to repeat those years. It’s expensive to go to school, y’know?

AJ: Yeah, well, that’s…that’s why I ended up with three degrees. And I had my whole resume was full of gap years. I mean my pattern was I would work two years at a job, get bored, and then I’d go travel for a year or more. Y’know, and then I’d come back and get a new job, maybe work a year or two, quit, travel again. And that was a long series of that. And I was joking, but it wasn’t until I was 37 that I finally started my own business and really found what I really wanted to do. So I kind of laugh when kids struggle and ask these questions because I agree with you, y’know, they don’t have enough real world experience and it’s like you don’t need to make a decision right away. Get out there in the world and have some experience for several years and then, y’know, then you can figure it out. It’s okay if you figure it out when you’re 30. It doesn’t matter.

Kristin: Yeah, I’m still trying to figure it out. Hmm, AJ, we have that in common.

AJ: Yes, indeed.

Kristin: Work…work for a certain amount of time and take some time off to travel.

AJ: Yeah.

Joe: Well, y’know, I think that a lot of the times when people speak about a gap year, they’re really talking about taking that year before you go to university. But what you’re talking about, I think, is really, really important and it’s an opportunity most people don’t have, which is to have your quote-unquote gap year during your career, where you take time off.

AJ: Yeah, many, I mean, y’know, it’s that idea of a…I like that idea of a sabbatical, which is that idea of you take a year off just to explore any interest you have. And, I mean that…I guess formally sabbaticals were mostly for…

Joe: Teachers.

AJ: …teachers, professors, but I like the idea as a general thing to do for everybody. Just…and for me it was travel so it was always every couple years going off on some trip to another country.

Kristin: Well, it makes sense. I think no matter what you do, like let’s say job-wise, not school but job-wise as far as taking a sabbatical, no matter how passionate you are about it, you can still get burned out. And so by taking that time off, you get rejuvenated and excited again about what it is you’re doing.

AJ: Or, y’know, you may…it gives you time, too, to just think about your life and the other thing that may happen, which happened to me a few times, was you realize, “Man, I don’t want to do this anymore.” So I was, at first I thought I wanted to be a journalist and then I realized no, I don’t want to do that. Then I became a social worker and then I realized I was…I liked it for a while but then I got tired of that. Then I became an English teacher…

Kristin: Well, yeah, I mean that happened, y’know, to me, too and definitely like 20s into my 30s, just not being happy at a job and taking time, trying to figure out what I wanted to do.

AJ: And I think there’s…and the thing is there’s nothing wrong with it. I remember at the time, y’know, all these adults and other older people around me giving me all these terrible warnings about, y’know, “Oh, you shouldn’t be doing this. This isn’t good for your career.” But, y’know, it all worked out just fine and I had a great and enjoyable time through my, y’know, 20s and 30s, and I think that there’s too many people have this idea that there’s this one way and all these rules and you must do this. And they’re so worried about, y’know, doing the wrong thing. And there’s just, there’s not a wrong thing.

Joe: Well, you know what, you actually, I’m sure, hit some difficult times, did you not?

AJ: Yeah, of course.

Joe: Yeah, but the important thing was that you learned from those things, y’know?

AJ: Hm.

Joe: I read an article written by the guy who started the company Pandora and he went through a lot of…a lot of situations similar to what you were talking about where he tried to do something. He didn’t enjoy it. He took some time off. He came back, tried something else. He didn’t enjoy that. And it took him a while really to figure out what it is he wanted to do. And he had the same exact situation with the adults in his life, his parents, family members who were trying to advise him. They were telling him that, “Oh, you have to get something, y’know, solidified for a career right now and if you don’t, oh, it might be too late.” And, y’know, it was when he was in his late 30s that he started Pandora, which is a really successful company now.

AJ: Mm-hm.

Joe: Y’know? And what he was saying in this article is that he grew from all these experiences and what it ultimately did was it made him more focused when he did want to actually do something and that he was passionate about, or when he wanted to do something he was passionate about, excuse me. So, y’know, this guy’s a great example, the guy who started Pandora. But, y’know, I read another article…it’s funny because I read like two or three articles about gap years because it interested me when I read the one about Tulane University. And this one I read said that this used to be something that never was done. Y’know, people of our parents’ generation never did something like this. But now it’s becoming a little more common and in the article, this other article, they were saying a company should actually welcome a situation where their employees want to have a gap year because they’re going to come back, they’re going to be less burned out, and most of the time people are going to use that time wisely and they’re going to grow from whatever experience they have.

Kristin: This…this conversation just made me think of a quote that I read fairly recently, and it’s in regards to a job, it basically said…or, or a career, something, y’know, you might want to do in life, but the quote goes something like don’t do something in the world, or don’t do something that you think the world needs more of, do something that makes you passionate because the world needs more passionate people.

AJ: Mm, yeah, that’s good.