The Benefits of a Gap Year

By Rosemary Pynes:

During the fall of my gap year, on a whim, I signed up for a marathon. Though I had run a half-marathon the summer before, I hadn’t grown up running, and I was still new to the sport. After my medical school interviews, faced with more free time than I was used to having, I decided to work toward a new goal. Training for that marathon holds many of my favorite moments from my gap year.

After exploring many healthcare-related career options throughout the first few years of college, I decided to pursue medical school in the late fall of my junior year at Hillsdale. To attend school in the fall after my college graduation, I would have a quick application turnaround. I knew I also wanted to complete a research project during the summer after my junior year, so I decided that taking a gap year would be the best choice for me.

The following fall of my senior year, I contemplated what I would do in a gap year. Every pre-med web page and guide suggested options such as scribing for a physician, working in a research lab, or getting a master’s degree. While all these opportunities sounded okay, I was not fully drawn in by any of them. Instead, I started to look for experiences outside of the medical field and academics. Though I enjoy school, after my college years I was starting to feel burnt out. I had a feeling that the best thing for my personal development and mental well-being would be to take a year away from high-intensity academics. I was presented with the opportunity to stay at Hillsdale and work for the Student Affairs office and realized that would be the perfect way to do something that I was passionate about outside of the scope of medicine for a year. 

In retrospect, my gap year working at Hillsdale was essential to my development into adulthood. In my position as a house director, I learned some of the practical professional obligations of a full-time work environment: attending meetings, setting professional goals, and coordinating projects with staff across campus. I also cultivated personal life skills, such as tracking my budget, making friends outside of an academic space, and spending time doing leisure activities that rejuvenated me. One of the best things that I did during my gap year was to cultivate hobbies and practices that I wanted to continue during medical school. From maintaining a healthy sleep schedule to running and various things in between, the time invested into creating habits for the life I wanted to lead has served me well during the last three years of medical school.

Though I trained for a marathon that winter, due to COVID-19, I never was able to run in the real thing. Even so, I have no regrets about each hour I invested into training. Taking a break from school during my gap year gave me a broader perspective of what I wanted to value and prioritize in my early twenties. Though imperfectly, I have been able to carry those lessons into the busy years of medical school. I know the habits I formed then and the ones I continue to develop now are crucial to keeping me the most balanced and happiest version of myself. In hindsight, taking a gap year was one of the best things I did to prepare to thrive in medical school. If I could go back, I wouldn’t change a thing!

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My Real Self: Reflections on identity in college and beyond