Why I took a gap year

Featuring lots of Utah cloud-and-sunset pictures

Re: useless calendars

I have no idea when my gap year starts, or if it has already. Obviously, there isn’t an official metric. At first, it felt like it started from the moment my gap year request was approved on May 18th. I still had my senior summer, but knowing that I had another year made the summer suddenly a “test lab” for my "real gap year." Instead of relaxing as I had planned to, I did a four-week summer camp, an internship, was a TA for a week, held my own week-long summer camp, taught writing lessons, and went hiking every weekend (until my mom sprained her ankle, which put a damper on my goal of hiking 50 trails during my gap year.) When I saw on Instagram two weeks ago that some students were moving into college, I felt a feeling of dread, as if I was nearing the starting line of a marathon that I hadn’t trained for. So now it actually begins: the test of whether or not I “wasted” an entire year. I didn’t actually believe I could “waste” it. Even if I relaxed for the entire 365 days, it would probably be the last chance in my life to have an entire year to relax. (Not to be dismal, but because I’ll probably need to support myself in some way.) In fact, I felt more of a feeling of glee—I was at home, without a mask, going to the local farmer’s market, eating my mom’s cooking, and setting my own schedule.



Why I decided to take a gap year

I think I first learned about the idea of a gap year when I heard Malia Obama was taking one. It sounded like a cool idea, but mainly for rich kids, who could take a year off to “travel the world” and “discover themselves.” Yet when the COVID-19 pandemic made college a big question mark, I began considering the gap year idea again. The most obvious question was: what would I do? (I’ve answered this question 24 times and counting—once for every neighbor, friend, acquaintance, stranger, and second aunt who learns I’m taking a gap year.) I wasn’t sure. I could do an internship. Where? No idea. I could start a writing project, and probably lose interest after a while. I could travel—but only after COVID died down and my mom would let me get on a plane/flying-bus-of-germs. My plans weren’t very good, and they weren’t even close to concrete. But I actually liked that. I liked the feeling of ambiguity, of openness and space. I love this quote from Jennifer Egan (author of multiple amazing books including A Visit from the Goon Squad and Look at Me) from a Freakonomics podcast: I remember when I would come home from school and no one was home

and I didn’t have a plan. There was this almost mysterious excitement that

I would feel about just being alone. I have to say, I feel I lost touch with that through maybe even decades of my

life where I was so worried about what everyone else was doing, how I

measured up, whether there was some important thing everyone else was

doing that I should be doing too. And this was before social media. I think

this is a scourge for young people now. From everything I hear. But if I can

get that out of my head, which I find easier and easier as I get older, there’s

a feeling that there’s sort of a mystery that’s waiting for me that I can

possibly enter. I don’t always love ambiguity. Frankly, that feeling of emptiness can make me anxious. But I think I’ve grown to feel more comfortable with open-ended problems. I wanted to give myself more time to grow confident and more sure of my values and goals. I didn’t want to get on a treadmill and, like Egan says, be “worried about what everyone else was doing, how I measured up, whether there was some important thing [...] that I should be doing too.” I was worried that if I went to Harvard now, I would feel constant inadequacy and pressure to get “that” internship or “that” friend group or “that” club. If I took a year, I could make myself stronger, more sure, more myself. I could eat metaphorical broccoli.



Most of all, if I took the leap to declare a gap year, I knew I would be able to keep myself moving. I assumed that there would be droves of gap year applicants and that Harvard would cap the numbers early on. This was later funny to me, because Harvard approved all gap year requests and even extended the deadline to the end of July. But at the time, I felt a sense of urgency. I sat down with my parents and we made a list of pros and cons. It was pretty useless, since I couldn’t really weigh “more time to think” versus “more structured learning.” But then we listed scenarios:

• What would happen if I went to college

  • If it was completely online (we didn’t know at the time if it would be)

  • If it was in-person but classes were online

• What would happen if I had a “productive” gap year

  • If I could find an internship

  • If I could travel

• What would happen if I took a year off and did nothing

Even in the worst-case scenario, where I did absolutely nothing, I would still gain a full four-year college experience (rather than online school and cancelled orientation/activities), I would be more relaxed, and I would be able to spend more time with family. That made things pretty clear to me.



How I planned my gap year

As much as I love ambiguity, I knew I still needed some sort of plan if I wanted to learn/grow/become a better person. I read a lot of online guides about planning, mostly from for-profit companies. I didn’t learn much, except that gap year companies are in a lucrative business. Instead, I made a “gap year dump” where I wrote all my random ideas. For example, while driving around town with my friends, I saw a new building that looked modern and interesting. When I got home, I looked it up, and wrote down the information of the company. Other ideas on my list: working at a local bee lab, working with the local opera company (I toured during theater class my senior year), and starting a small business. I haven’t pursued these ideas at all. I want to say “yet,” but that seems a little dramatic. They’ll be there for whenever I’m bored, want something new, or want to be rejected/left unanswered. I’ve learned that from cold-emails in the past: being a kid emailing strangers is really tough. I think more helpful than this list of “work” and “internships” was my list of personal projects. During my year, I want to:

• Make a zine every month, read at least 4 books a month and take notes, travel somewhere solo, study Chinese, learn how to do makeup (without looking like a fake human), and cook and exercise everyday. I’d also like to go through CS50, but don’t think I have the self-discipline. That’s probably a stretch goal.



I also made a list of what I’m curious about and interested in:

• Trees, museums, cities, zines, stargazing, murals, fashion, law, design, cute art shops, animation.

Where do I want to be in 5 years? Who are the people around me that I admire? What do they do? What experiences make me envious, in a good way? I put the lists on my table and stared at them, as if they would tell me what to do next.

Edit: how I’m planning my gap year

To make it more manageable, I decided to try and split my year into 1-3 month chunks. “Split” seems funny, considering how easily each month bleeds into the next. Why not 50-100 hour chunks? Why not 2 moons? Maybe that’s also a good metric. We’ll see. During each chunk, I’m planning to tackle a new goal or side project, and publish it here to help keep myself accountable. I’m hoping that in the spring I’ll be able to travel. For now, I’m mostly focusing on any projects where I can learn something new. Any projects. I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes (my all-time favorite comic strip):

We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more

than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of

relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set. [...]

Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car

battery—it recharges by running. This quote makes me feel better that, just because I don’t watch Netflix, I’m not a 'disfigured' teenager with no chill. If I say I’m being “unproductive,“ a lot of people make the assumption that I’m super Type-A and can’t take a break. But for me, when I feel unproductive, it’s more that I feel lethargic and listless after scrolling on social media and not doing anything that’s really fun or actually ”relaxing.“ I want to feel flow, and do something sustainable that makes me feel happy.



Actual, concrete, not-so-physical projects

Since the beginning of August, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to be an intern with Tsingyuan Ventures, a venture firm that invests in highly technical founders. It’s changed a lot of my view around startups/entrepreneurship, Silicon Valley, and venture capital. I’m taking on a project where I interview founders/CEO’s and publish the interviews on Medium. So far I’ve done 30-45 minute interviews with around two dozen founders.



I have a lot to think about from our conversations, and it sometimes even feels surreal. But it’s also stressful to interview, ask the right questions, and sound like a normal person in emails. It’s long and slow when editing transcripts. I’m now hyper-sensitive to filler words in conversations: um, you know, right, well, like. A lot of the job (okay, most of it) is writing and editing. But I still feel like I’m learning a ridiculous amount. I’m also teaching creative writing classes to students. They’re from all around the U.S, but mostly from California. I’d love to publish a blog post about what I’ve learned from them. I’m also designing a new website for an education nonprofit called GripTape. My project for September-November is to publish 1-2 articles a week. Two seems a little ambitious, and I want to make sure I’m putting thought into each post rather than dashing it off for the sake of numbers. But one also seems like too little of a stretch. I also hope to start on a personal portfolio. I’ve been gathering tons of websites to build one. But I’ve always felt reluctant to really “profile” myself online or “build a brand.” I don’t like putting everything I’ve done out in the open. When I think about it, I don’t even care about strangers seeing it. Instead, I’m bothered by people I know, and whose opinions I care about, seeing it. That’s actually a good topic for a blog post; I think I’ll write about it next. I don’t think any people are actually reading this far into this post. This was supposed to be a short article, and it’s turned into more of a diary entry. But I feel like that’s actually a good mindset as I start out, so I can be more realistic.

What really prompted this post is seeing that my would-be Harvard Class of 2024 classmates have moved into their dorms. And so this is it: the official start of my gap year. Or bridge year? Bridge seems so much more nice-sounding. I’m optimistic: this will be a Golden-Gate-Bridge type of year.

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Misc.

• Sunrise pictures seem more appropriate for this post, but I don't usually wake up early enough. Maybe that should be another goal.

• I was interviewed about taking a gap year in PBS NewsHour.



To stay up to date with my writing: taylorfang.substack.com

To get in contact: taylor.fang15@gmail.com. I'd love to hear your thoughts.