The issues with a last minute gap year
Over the past few weeks I’ve been planning a very last-minute gap year. This gap year wasn’t because I’d not got into university, but because I decided against the course I originally applied for, and also realised, being a southern critter, the cold north was not my ideal place to live.
Before results day I had planned to work until January and then travel for a few months until I could go back to my seasonal job - I was also going to do some work experience and volunteer work - all of which I believed would be fun, ideal and a good way to spend a year.
But once my results were released, I was disappointed. I got into my ‘first choice’ university but I didn’t get the grades I was hoping for, which not only demotivated me, but changed every plan I had for the next year.
My initial panic was through not feeling good enough for university. I didn’t do badly, and I know this now, but at the time my results seemed like the worst possible outcome.
I felt like I was the only person at results day who had reached the offer to go to a top 10 university but was still very disappointed with how they’d performed. I did think of going to this university just because it was the easiest option; I could change my course, buy a few hundred jumpers and go. However, seeing how excited and happy everyone was about going to university - even those who got into their insurance choice - made me realise that this wasn’t a good option. Going somewhere for three years and possibly wasting £50,000+ on fees, accommodation, food, transport etc. wasn’t worth it if I wasn’t going to be somewhere I wasn’t happy to be.
I decided to talk to my ex head of year and plan to retake 3 exams in order to boost my grades and get those few extra marks I needed to get the grades above in my subjects. For me this shouldn’t reflect too badly because I have an on going health condition that could have affected my exams, but for others this could caused a lot of panic, and to those people I just want to say that everything will work out.
Having to retake exams is a bit of an awkward thing to fit into my year; I can no longer go travelling for a few months because I have to work in order to have money for when I can’t work due to exams, and I’m unable to volunteer because I need to work to get this money, and so forth.
With the panic of results, university application and having a job all past, I decided to look for work experience opportunities to just help me prove to universities that I’m not just sitting at home doing nothing for a year. I must admit, I have never been faced with a challenge so difficult as to finding economic based work experience opportunities.
With the initial google search I was optimistic. So many companies offer work experience, internships and so forth, but for nearly every single one of these you have to be a graduate… something I am not. There was also a major issue of many of the non-graduate opportunities being abroad or having a fee: I applied to a 2-month internship that, after applying and receiving an email from the company, I was informed would cost £5500. Seeing as internships are unpaid, travelling around London isn’t cheap, and finding accommodation for this 2 month period would also cost money, having to then pay £5500 seemed ridiculous.
It then dawned on me that being from anything but a high-earning household meant that the opportunities you have when you’re young are severely limited. Of course, I could have planned my gap year much in advance and applied earlier to placements/work experience opportunities. But there are some people who can’t do this because they missed out on their grades, or became badly ill meaning university wasn’t the option for them, or any other scenario which meant it wasn’t planned.
It shocked me that this is the case, that even with the stress of A-levels and driving tests, and working part time, we’re expected to plan more, yet not be told that there are hardly any opportunities for people after sitting their exams.
Another issue of taking a gap year is seeing everyone else go away to university or apprenticeships, and so forth. But for anyone who is finding this, there are a lot of people who will be taking a year out and both of you may be grateful for someone to go to, say, go to the cinema with so you’re not sat at the back of the theatre crying into your bucket of popcorn alone.
For anyone who is having a year that isn’t quite going to plan, all I can offer you is some advice: keep looking for opportunities and, most of all, don’t become demoralised of demotivated because it doesn’t quite seem to be working out just yet.
