Tag Archives: gap year

How My Parents Influenced My Gap Year Decision

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Have you ever had a moment when you realized that your parents have had a far more profound effect on your decisions than you previously realized? I’m not talking about the conversations where your parents subtly (or maybe not so subtly) hint at what they would like you to do with your life. I’m talking about those moments when you realize that without realizing it, you’re following your parents’ example.

I had one of those very recently, when I was trying to make an important decision about my post-graduation plans.

It was September. I had just arrived at Scripps, and was excited and relieved that I had finally decided on the graduate degree I would pursue. However, I was immediately met by another hard choice: would I apply to grad programs after graduating Scripps, taking a year to travel and work, or apply now, launching myself right back into academia?

There were pros and cons to either choice. By going straight to grad school, I would maintain the momentum I’ve built up over my time at Scripps, and find out sooner about whether I would get into my top choice grad school, which would relieve some anxiety. However, every time I considered this option, I had a unsettling feeling of doubt and discomfort. I kept coming back to the idea of the gap year.

The decision began to weigh heavily on me, growing to existential proportions. It seemed to me that whatever choice I made would be a reflection of my values in life. By considering taking a gap year to travel and work, I felt like I was once and for all giving up my high school identity as a hyper ambitious go-getter, an idea I haven’t entirely let go of. I worried (irrationally) that my family would see me as a “slacker,” or (more realistically) that I would begin to see myself that way.

But at the same time, I imagined all the stories of adventures my parents had from their twenties, and realized that many of their best life experiences would never have happened if they hadn’t have taken risks- like taking a year off. That’s when I realized that the way my parents have lived their lives have had a far greater impact on me than I imagined before.

My mum (right) and her friend, hitch hiking in Corsica.

My mum (right) and her friend, hitch hiking in Corsica.

My mum still talks wistfully about how she spent her early twenties rock climbing, how she camped out illegally for weeks on a beach in Greece, how she rode her Harley Davidson across Santorini and her dingy little road bike across Turkey. I thought about how she deferred her first teaching job (in England, her country of origin) to travel across the Atlantic for the first time, take a Greyhound bus from Toronto to San Francisco, and then backpack across Mexico for two months.

Mum, about 20, bike touring across Turkey

Mum, about 20, bike touring across Turkey

I thought about my Dad and how in his early twenties, he quit his first job and got his pilot’s license, flying back and forth between LAX and Catalina Island. And I thought about his fabled windsurfing adventures in Aruba.

My dad, the windsurfer

My dad, the windsurfer.

Finally, I thought about how together, my parents quit their jobs, left the USA, and bike toured across the entirety of the UK, Greece, and New Zealand.

Mum on her tour with Dad in New Zealand.

Mum on her tour with Dad in New Zealand.

In those few months of trying to make this decision about grad school and whether to take some time to travel and work, I realized just how big an impact my parents’ attitudes towards life and adventure have had on me. And I worried that if I were to dive straight into grad school, I would miss out on a crucial opportunity to collect a few of my own experiences. Worst of all, what if by giving up this opportunity, I inadvertently set the tone for a post college life where my career always took priority, no matter what.

I realize that even if I were to go straight into grad school, I would still probably have adventures, that education and life experience aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, adventure, risk, and occasional danger has already been an important part of my college years. There was the time my best friend and I backpacked part of the Pacific Crest Trail, got stalked by a mountain lion, and had to have my dad bail us out. Or the summer that I spent 15 hour days trekking solo into canyons at Crater Lake National Park in order to search for an elusive species of frog. There was the other time that, via Facebook, I joined up with a group of female cyclists from Long Beach whom I’d never met, rode the train up to Santa Barbara, stayed the night in a dingy motel, then tried to ride with them all the way down the coast back to LA only to crash my bike and end up in the ER.

My summer job a year ago, when I regularly hiked miles with my waders through a river at the bottom of a 300 foot canyon.

My summer job a year ago, when I regularly hiked miles (with my waders) through a river at the bottom of a 300 foot canyon.

These are the stories from college upon which I already fondly reminisce. Call me greedy, but I want more.

While I realize that sometimes, the best adventures are not planned, I think taking a year to act spontaneously, and do things I would not normally do definitely won’t hurt my prospects of stumbling across experience.

When I enter the academic world once more, I expect to still have a little of that go-getter inside myself. I don’t think that part of me will ever completely go away. But there’s another part of me, the adventurous side that I inherited from my parents, that’s telling me that the year following my graduation from Scripps is a crucial year for adventure and experience, and that while grad school can wait twelve months, my gap year won’t.

Everything

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If you didn’t go to any of the events put on by Career Planning & Resources during Life After Scripps, you really missed out. Not only did I gain a lot of valuable information about careers and how to pursue the one you want, but I also got a free froyo and got to make a pretty collage. While I may have been one of the only a few first years at many of the sessions, I fit in amongst the eager students learning how to act in an interview and catch the attention of big businesses.

So, if you were unable to make it to one of these events, don’t worry. There are many more throughout the year put on by the wonderful CP&R that you can partake in. The froyo might not be included in the deal, however.

Although I enjoyed and benefited from all of the sessions that I attended, my favorite was by far “Create Your Gap Year.” I felt a little bit hypocritical while there because I just spent so long planning for college itself and deciding where to spend the next four years of my life, and now I’m planning what to do when that is over. I moved on pretty quickly.

Not actually, though. I’ve always had a dream to travel abroad after I graduate from college, and so I though that starting to think about a plan for a gap year would be a great idea. It makes me happy, as well, to think about all of the cool things that I can do and as some of the other girls at the session said, discover some things about yourself that you couldn’t and didn’t have time to at Scripps.

During the session, we were able to go through stacks of magazines and create collages to map out our gap year. Mine was pretty broad and mainly included things that I like and enjoy doing, and the vague ideas I have for what I want to do after my life at Scripps. It pretty much reflects the very few concrete ideas I have, and more just shows my excitement and optimism towards the idea of a gap year since the paper has a lot of bring and pretty colors.

photo

Making my collage made me realize that there are plenty of opportunities to do the things that you want to do after college, and that you can always change your path. It’s possible to stop doing something if it’s not what you like, and many times it is even worth it to change. As some of the big wigs at one of the career panels said, a job is a significant part of your life and thus you should enjoy what you do. Know what you’re getting into before you do it, but also be willing to change it if it’s not working out well. If traveling is what it takes for you to figure out what you want to do, go for it. And that’s just what I might end up doing at this point, since I have no idea otherwise!

Rejection and Opportunity: The Senior Struggle is Real

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For most of you it is February going on March. For anyone who is a senior, I’m sure you’ll agree when I say that it feels more like it’s February going on May. Every day feels like it’s the end, and yet you can’t help but revel in memories of when you encountered this day at Scripps for the first time four short years ago. It’s a beautiful schizophrenia we live in as seniors. I’m coming to learn, however, that spring of senior year in college feels a lot more bittersweet than it did in high school. Around this time in high school, we all knew that we had gotten into Scripps and choose to attend. We had planned next steps, and we could truly relax and enjoy our final moments in high school.

In college, however, I’m coming to find that senior spring can be one of the most stressful semesters of your college career. Yes, I am really excited about graduating and moving on to that next chapter in my life, but for some, including myself, just finding the title to this next chapter, let alone what its contents will be can be sickening. And let somebody ask me one more time about what I’m doing after graduation… I can’t even finish the thought.

We’re all either applying for jobs and fellowships, and hearing back, or in some cases, not hearing back. And it is this latter part that can really start to eat away at one’s self-confidence…especially if our peers are fairing far better in landing post grad opportunities.

Unfortunately, rejection is a part of life that we’re not trained how to handle well. So for this week’s blog post, I wanted to help students think about alternative ways to view and handle this daunting new chapter ahead. This is dedicated to all my seniors in the struggle.

It was January 28th around 3pm that I got the email. I could have opened it the minute I saw it, but my finger just lingered over my phone screen, paralyzed with fear.  If this email did not have what I wanted to see, what I had planned so hard to see, then the perfect two year plan that I had devised for myself was about to become the next four months of chaos.

Dear Daysha,

We regret to inform you…

Ah. The infamous “We-regret-to-inform-you” speech, the equivalent of the other wildly unpopular “we-need-to-talk” speech in dating (but for professional opportunities), was staring me back in the face like that dreaded text message from your soon-to-be ex.

It was a hard blow to take to my ego but, interestingly enough, I was not angry that I did not receive a Fulbright. It actually felt weird knowing how ok I was. That’s not to say that I did not want it, but as Michelle Bauman, a CMC alumna who was also the keynote speaker for the Women and Leadership Alliance conference last Friday, would say, maybe this rejection was delivered to me as a gift.

In her speech, Bauman, executive turned motivational coach, dared us to rethink the purpose behind the rejections we receive in life. “If the challenge were here for you, not against you,” she asked, “a gift brought here only for the purpose of serving you, what is the opportunity? What is the gift to grow?”

Applying Bauman’s question to my own life, I think that I was not meant to get the Fulbright because I think I am actually meant to take the next year off to devote to my writing. It was an idea that I had been toying around with prior to hearing back from Fulbright, but I was terrified of actually doing it. As Scripps students, I think that it can feel daunting to go a non-traditional route after graduation when we’re constantly bombarded with pressure from our families and society to get a “real” job.

However, as Bauman so eloquently stated in her speech, “we have to look for the opportunities where we fold up like a pretzel… and use it as an opportunity for growth; an opportunity for transformation.” For me that came in the form of a playwriting competition, which I can proudly say I won, and has only reinforced my decision to do a self-designed writing fellowship (self-designing…such a Scrippsie, right?) So I would say if there’s something that you’ve been pondering about doing post-graduation, but it scares you. It forces you to step outside yourself and take a risk, then do it. If you’re wildly successful at it, you’ll be forever grateful that you took the risk. But if it doesn’t go as planned, remember that there is a gift there for you begging to be opened and put to use.

“What have I done?”

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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought this in the last six months.

Is this the only path?

The first was when I learned I had been awarded the Fulbright. A moment that I expected would have been joyous, was actually a mix of relief (that the wait was over) and terror. At a time where most of my peers were still figuring out their post-grad plans, I now had the next year laid out in front me. On March 26, 2012, I was in the same, confused boat as everyone else, and at Scripps that boat is more like a luxurious cruise ship of confusion. By March 27, 2012, I was in a boat of my own. Sure, my dinghy-for-one had a heading, but I really missed the company.

It can be difficult to talk about job opportunities with friends senior year, particularly if they haven’t been offered anything, and even more so if you’ve been offered an opportunity for which they’ve been rejected. Still, I had thoughts and questions to wrestle with, starting with “what have I done?”

I don’t plan on being a teacher. I’m not even sure that I enjoy kids. Actually, I’m fairly certain I don’t enjoy most kids, but you can’t say that sort of thing without sounding heartless. Did I really want to be an English Teaching Assistant? Maybe I got caught up in the Scripps Fulbright frenzy. Maybe I just needed to “win” something to prove my worth. I’d experienced so many lonely moments in Denmark, did I really want to go abroad for a full year? And what about my long-term boyfriend, who I would be leaving behind? I re-read my Statement of Grant Purpose and Personal Statement, regained my confidence and accepted the offer, but these doubts and anxieties did not disappear.

Taking a Fulbright felt very much like walking into the woods without using the buddy system…

They resurged with a vengeance at the airport. I was a crying, snot-faced mess at the gate of my plane, and seriously considered not boarding and wiring Fulbright their money back. “What have I done?” In addition to the doubts about my professional capabilities and trajectory, I was overwhelmed with leaving my boyfriend. After four years of taking those Scripps psychology surveys that ask you context-less questions pitting careers and relationships against each other, I was living out that dilemma. And it hurt.

Now that I’m here, I’m still not sure what I’ve done. I don’t know how to teach. I don’t speak the language. I could be eating my favorite pumpkin bagel with pumpkin cheesecake cream cheese back in the beautifully autumnal Pacific Northwest right now. I could be furnishing an apartment that I plan to live in for more than nine months, or going to my friends’ engagement parties. I could be living somewhere with a Taco Bell right now, for goodness sake!

…but a walk in the woods has its rewards!

But I’m not. I’m on an adventure that requires me to take one step at a time. It’s one that I am ready for, whether I think so or not, and sometimes I need to take time out to remind myself of my strengths. I’m a “Strong Scripps Woman.” I’m good at mentoring, public speaking, recognizing and navigating cultural differences. I work well with a team. I have a good sense of direction.

And sometimes, I can write.

Fulbright Part 2: Working on the Application

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There’s a reason this post is not titled “How to Write the Perfect Fulbright Application.” I cannot tell you the secrets of THE perfect Fulbright app, because a successful application, I suspect, is less about being the Best. Applicant. Ever and more about making a convincing argument that you and your country of choice would make a productive partnership. Here are some ideas for how to craft your own best application.

• Spend time picking the right country for you. You can read about my country-choosing process here, or Adelina Solis ’11 perspective in this post.

We all came for different reasons… but no one came because they were already fluent in Bulgarian. Half our ETA cohort and our language teacher, Diana, in Beginning Bulgarian Language. Fulbright International Summer Institute, 2012.

• Don’t be afraid to take questions to the Fulbright Program Adviser or other staff on-campus. They are busy people, so respect their time and make sure your question hasn’t already been answered on the Fulbright or Scripps websites.

• The Off-Campus Study office keeps binders full of successful Fulbright applications. Do spend time reading them. I went back a couple of times. I found it helpful to take notes and write down ideas I had as I was reading. Take notice of what people list under publications, awards, abstract, and future career goals. No one will tell you how exactly to write these sections, but you may find ideas for what to include and how.

• If you’ve been abroad before, or have previous teaching experience, think about the moments that have stuck with you. Because Fulbright’s mission is to foster mutual understanding, moments that focus on cultural or interpersonal exchange may provide good anecdotal fodder for personal statements.

• If you have a side project, craft it to be mutually beneficial for your country and yourself. If I stayed inside writing science fiction all day, I wouldn’t be interacting much with the culture. With a travel writing focus, I practice my writing, interact with the country, and hopefully help others interact with Bulgaria as well. Other ETAs here plan to volunteer at orphanages, teach music to Roma kids, and practice cartography in their placement cities; use something you’re passionate about.

Cultural exchange can be as simple as teaching Bulgarians the “Wobble.” Fulbright International Summer Institute, 2012.

• Finish at least one draft of your personal statements and grant purpose in time to have the Writing Center take a look. Taking criticism can be hard, for these personal essays even more so than with academic essays (I cried, and I doubt I was the first to do so). The Writing Center staff is there to offer support and constructive feedback. Their ideas can lead to fruitful revision, but it means being vulnerable and open to suggestion.

• Be honest in your application essays. I mention it, because it’s important that you know your essays may be used not only to decide whether or not to award you the Fulbright, but may also determine (in the case of ETAs) where in the country you’ll be placed. It might be a matter of where your side-project (if you have one) will best be completed, or where your hobbies might be accomplished. My own essays mentioned Bulgaria’s natural beauty and my semester learning Balkan Dance. My placement is in Bulgaria’s most beautiful mountain range, and my predecessor took Bulgarian Dance classes at the community center. Coincidence? Nope.

• Make sure you can articulate to yourself WHY you want to do this, WHAT you’ll get out of it, HOW you’ll approach various aspects of the grant (language learning, culture shock, teaching), and ANY reservations you have. Figure out how to address these questions before talking to faculty recommenders, and certainly before your interview. If you’re confident in yourself, they will be confident in you too.

• If you need a neurotic online community, check out the Fulbright thread on the Grad Café forums. I appreciated knowing that the anxiety was not mine alone.

These are my tips for navigating the Fulbright application process. I’ll admit they are biased towards the ETA application, where I have experience. What suggestions would you add to this list?