Students reflect on gap year experiences

Senior year is the time when many students ask themselves, “What do I want to do next?” Instead of immediately continuing on to the next stage of education, some students decide to plunge into the ambiguous world of “gap years.”

Joining the army, traveling or gaining work experience are among the many options students can pursue before continuing their education.

Danielle Jacobson, a junior at Hopkins, completed her high school education in Cape Town, South Africa. She graduated high school in November, giving her almost a year before she started at Hopkins in the fall.

Jacobson divided her time between traveling, running a small jewelry company and taking classes for fun at a local college.

“I took care of the household and did all the cooking and cleaning and shopping, which helped me mature and grow my love for cooking and baking. I tried to learn as much as I could on my travels, as well as at home,” Jacobson said. “I was learning and attending class because I wanted to, not because I had to, and I think there’s a big difference in the mindset there.”

Although Jacobson took her gap year after high school, many students also make this same decision after their senior year of college before applying to graduate programs.

The Office of Pre-Professional Advising defines a gap year as one or more years between graduation and when a student applies to medical or law school.

According to statistics from The Office of Pre-Professional Advising, the five-year average from 2011 to 2015 of students who take one or more gap years stood at 79.4 percent.

The number of students who decided not to take a gap year before pursuing a medical or legal education has declined since 2011.

However, the number of students who do take at least one gap year has been steadily increasing since 2011.

In 2015, 84.3 percent of students in the pre-professional track took one or more gap years.

Alexandra Capellini, a pre-med senior at Hopkins majoring in public health, hopes to be able to use her gap year to step outside academia and apply her knowledge to real-world situations.

“The last four years, I’ve been focused on my public health degree, on the pre-med requirements [and] gaining medical experience,” Capellini said. “I want to focus on taking a step into the real world and see how I manage on a day to day basis working at a job at an actual hospital and gain more people-to-people skills.”

Class of 2014 graduate Becky Ward chose to pursue two gap years before she started medical school for similar reasons.

Ward said her gap years provided her with invaluable experiences outside of the classroom that ultimately got her accepted into her top choice medical school.

“I had only planned on taking one gap year, but my PI asked me to stay longer, so it wound up being two,” Ward said. “I was able to get several publications out of my lab.”

Anjani Kapadia, a senior at Hopkins majoring in public health and applying to medical school, hopes to use her gap year to spend time trying new activities.

“I wanted a period of time where the next step was not clearly laid out and was something very much out of my initiative,” Kapadia said. “I think this is one of the last chances that I’ll have a large chunk of time to do things like travel, spend time with my family or explore a new passion.”

The pre-professional advising office specifically recommends students use their gap year to do something they are passionate about, or  use the additional time to improve the quality of their applications for medical or law school.

Rachel Kassler, a senior at Hopkins majoring in International Studies, Spanish and Latin American studies, wanted to take a gap year to hike the Appalachian trail.

“I wanted to have the adventure and sense of huge accomplishment that the hike will give me, as well as using the time off to learn more about what exactly it is I want to do as a career,” Kassler said.

Seth Hochberg, Class of 2015, found that his gap year helped him realize he no longer wanted the career path he had strived toward in his college career. He detailed the experience of his gap year in a Facebook status he wrote in February of 2016.

“College was a series of ‘I can’t wait until’s.’ ‘I can’t wait until I finish this assignment.’ ‘I can’t wait until my hell week is over.’ ‘I can’t wait until finals are over,” Hochberg wrote. “My life in college was going from completing one urgent task to another, and I am guilty, as I’m sure many of you are too, of postponing my happiness.”

Hochberg used his gap year to focus on his personal growth.

“I’ve always been embarrassed how little I read, and now I’ve read 20 books in the last few months,” he wrote. “I’ve achieved a completely newfound sense of balance in my life, which makes me incredibly happy.”