Why a Gap Year Will Change Your Life

in 2017 I was set to start studying law in Glasgow and that is not how my life ended up looking I'd already left school and honestly was really ready for a new beginning but something didn't feel right I realized that I was completely lost in life I had no real friends I didn't like who I was as a person and I was already pretty convinced I did not want to be a lawyer so what did I do well what any 17 year old would come up with I took a gap Year and thank God for that when I think about all of my favorite experiences over the past years they've either come from the Gap year or as a result of the Gap year that I took I wouldn't have had the work and general life experience that I have now I wouldn't have been able to say that I've already lived in five different countries and I wouldn't even have met the people that I love most in life taking a gap is pretty common and it's no longer seen as for the lost or the lazy but for those who want to change their life do better and be better it can mean saving up and traveling for a long period of time it can be mean just getting work experience for a year just taking time out of the education system and now of what you saw as the root for your life essentially I am so thankful for the tough decision that 17 year old Lucy made and to be honest I probably wouldn't even be sitting in front of this camera right now if I had not taken that step so in this video I want to convince every one of you to take a gap beer and if you've already taken a gap year then well let's put them in this together but first are you between 18 to 22 and you live in the US and you're starting to hit that point of your life where you think what is next what is the next step for me well I have a great idea for you guys speaking about Gap years in general want me to take most of the pressure off is to join a gap year program who can help you have the best experience possible and take care of a lot of the stress that a gap you can entail and that's why this portion of the video is sponsored by EF Gap year EF Gap year stands out to me because of the insane amount of options that they have so whether you only have 4 four weeks free but you're still wanting to get a little bit of a gap your experience or if you have a semester or even a full school year they have a perfect program for you that will help you and your personal growth and help you travel the world too we have an amazing range of activities you can do for a program from language learning courses to collaborating with local ngos which is non-government organizations or even taking internships in cities like Stockholm the programs with ef Gap year really take off everything that you would want from that year some of their destinations include Spain Australia Japan or Costa Rica but you can really mix and match with a program if you want to get a taste of everything the program in my eyes is a mix of having fun becoming worldly which I'll get into later and gaining skills for your CV to make you stand out when you are looking to get back into the working or educational world so if you're interested in taking a gap year with efgap here make sure to click the link below in the description and check out all the amazing opportunities that they have to help you grow as an individual and become your best self becoming worldly so I just mentioned that there but what does it even mean so according to dictionary I've just found here worldly means possessing or displaying significant experience and knowledge about life and the world and as much as I think that does sum it up it can mean different things to different people for me it just means being able to connect with people from all over the world and understand the differences and how we also come together as a group you know as a community we're all on the same planet and traveling really did open my eyes as someone who's from a tiny small town full of people who have lived there for generations and generations I felt like it was essential for me to leave that town and start witnessing other parts of the world I think it could depend on who you ask but in my mind becoming worldly just means someone that's kind of got out of the nest and seen bits of the world that maybe wouldn't be available to them in their own Hometown so traveling to different continents traveling to different countries within your own continent and seeing the different languages that people speak the cultural habits that people have how they act as individuals and how where they come from has shaped who they are as an individual I think a great way during your Gap year to become worldly is just by going to a hostel even last weekend I was in Poland with my friends and we met such a range of people people from all parts of the world and it was so fun that we could all come together and go on a night out and become friends essentially for the night and so if you are traveling on your Gap Year please stay in hostels going in hostels and traveling around different areas is a great way to meet people without maybe having to go over to every continent in the world the world has changed over the past hundred years and people are not staying in their home countries anymore and companies are not only hiring people from there too thanks to remote working for example and so to be able to have experience with people from all over the world and understand where cultures change and the taboos of some cultures and what other cultures might love I think it's a really important skill to have nowadays speaking of skills taking a gap year gives you skills and knowledge that you just do not get in the classroom I don't know about any of you and where you're from but I never had a single lesson on finances at to this day the education system did not find it important for me to know about finances and how to handle my money and taking a gap year taught me that because Gap years are expensive it takes a lot of saving um unless you are working for that Gap year and you really have to be wise with your money especially when you're a bit younger like I was when you're 17 and you don't have years of working experience where you've been able to kind of get a lot of cash ready for it there's so many other skills too that I learned from my Gap here such as organization oh wow it takes so much organizations that I got here I remember my notion Pages were looking insane for my Gap year I was planning every trip I was planning where I was going to stay the booking references for that the flight times how to get to the airport how to get from the city to the airport places to see movie experiences to do if I had an extra 20 year girls to spend foods to try from that country and there's a lot of planning that goes into if you want it to go well and I did I wanted to experience every city I was traveling in to during my Gap year so I really did the research and you might think that it stops there but that is something that you can put in your CV when you're applying to jobs you were able to organize a gap year whether it be connecting with a program like efgapier or doing it yourself it's such an important skill to learn and again you don't learn it in the classroom yes taking time out of that God awful system that we created where you basically don't have a say in how your life goes you know you're free and you go to Nursery you're five and you go to school you graduate at 18 you go straight into University and then you try to find a good job and then you get a house and a mortgage and you get married and you have kids and you know what more and more people nowadays are saying I don't want that and that is I'm so home for it we do not need to follow this system that's been a white man 100 years ago created because it doesn't work for all of us not everyone wants that traditional life and if you do great you already know what you want and you're lucky that it got handed to you as the main option for most of us that is no I did not want to stay in my home country I did not want to stay in my hometown I didn't want to follow a traditional route I wanted to study a degree that it's not obvious to people what you can do after it but it was something I was passionate about and made me happy and I'm really thankful that I did this because I'm just thinking about what my life would have been like if I'd listened to kind of the pressure from the education system that you want to get a good degree with a good job and that shoe set for life I would not have been happy as a lawyer and I don't think I would have been a good lawyer either it also puts life into perspective because when you are on that route you only see that route whereas when you take yourself out and maybe you even feel lost for a while you realize okay actually there are a hundred different ways my likely go for the next 50 years and I have no idea how it's going to go but I'm open to them and I'm doing the research to see what one is going to make me happiest in learning learning what you don't want to do I mean it's as simple as that my Gap year made me realize the plan that I had was not gonna make me happy and I think sometimes people go on Gap years to find what they do want to do but I would say that you end up just realizing all of the things you don't want to do I would look into different degree programs during that year I would meet people that study different things or worked in different jobs or lived in different countries and I would say I I don't know what I want but I know I don't want that you start realizing a lot more about yourself you're more introspective you can think I don't like when people do this to me I don't like when I act this way it's almost like a way to have you know therapy it's just by taking a gap year because you really do feel like you're going into the best you're going into the unknown and that is the ideal time to start looking into yourself and realizing who you are as a person and what your morals are your values are and hey maybe in a hostel one time you meet someone and they say oh you know what I'm actually working in the spirits industry and you go that's it that's what I want to do like you find out from other people and if you stay in your hometown with people you've known your whole life you're not hearing those other options that are available to you even like a month ago University I went to this random seminar about people that learn languages and went into the film industry and I was like it wasn't even an option in my head now I'm thinking do I want to join the film industry why not okay adversity this is something that comes from negative points of your Gap here but you will soon realize that it is for the best you went through that there are so many when you go out of the traditional path there are so many ways that life isn't easy and you're gonna have to adapt and you're gonna have to kind of be in the thick of it for a while I remember that I started my Gap year probably in a really really low mood for a good chunk of it but it taught me to adapt and it taught me to think more in myself and who I want to be and that the people that were in my life were making me happy and so I had to make a change and I had to meet new people that had the same values that aligned with mine and again if you do choose to go abroad which I really really if it's not already always recommend that is an insane situation you know you think okay I'll just buy a plane ticket I'm there you have to get a flat you have to find health insurance you have to probably get a job over there and that is difficult stuff but you learn to adapt and you realize that these things just aren't that scary after the the other countries I've moved to and all the jobs I've had I've just realized it's just not as difficult as your brain makes it out to be you can get a flat in your non-native language you can get health insurance you can do it you just have to push yourself and test yourself and you realize how capable you are of great things for example last year when I was in Valencia not only did I have to do all of those things but I was joining a work environment where the teachers didn't speak English and I swear the whole run up to it I just thought to myself you're not capable of this you're not capable of this you're gonna feel you're gonna have no friends you're not gonna be able to talk to anything and when I got there I realized oh wait I can because I pushed myself and I learned how to and there's always a way to get by you just have to sometimes push yourself and also embrace the change Embrace that these people you're meeting are just not like you and they're different from you and respect it and take the good from them like I was saying earlier and ignore the bad that every country has good and bad and so do their people every now and then I just like to do a bit of reflection on who I would have been mean if I didn't take that Gap year and I do genuinely think all of the joy in my life over the past five years came from the fact that I said I'm done with high school I'm leaving I'm not going to law school either because that will make me happy and I'm getting out of here in whatever way I can I think 16 year old Lucy would have had no idea who 22 year old Lucy was going to be but I would like to think that she's happy and who I am now and that she's become a little bit worldly and she's trying to do her best for everyone she's trying to broaden her Horizons and not just be another number in your small Hometown and with that it's making me think about the fact that in two to three months I'm done with University and I'm on to that next PATH of what's next and I'm actually excited for it because I know that I can I can do it I can get by done it a billion times before and whatever comes who come or as the famous lyricos Que Sera Sera okay thank you so much everyone for listening to this video this is a little deep little random but I just I was thinking about my Gap here lately and I really wanted to talk about it on this channel and speaking of thanks again to EF Gap year for sponsoring this video definitely check them out and have a look at the programs that they have on offer okay see you soon bye [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Lucy Allan

Views: 18,820

Keywords: Lucy Allan, Language Student, Linguistic Student, Female Traveller, travel, learner, student, self improvement, vlog, vlogs, productivity, read, books, reading, philosophy, person, tedtalks, tedx, motivation, lifelessons, learn, grow

Id: n-WD8uhUrcU

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 04 2023