Take a break

A gap year could prove to be a blessing for those who would like to explore their interests before making a choice.

Mihika Agnihotri is a versatile person, passionately interested in creative work, especially arts and design. She had got her bachelor’s degree in fine art and at the end of the course, found that she was not clear whether to go for further studies in the practice of art or to specialise in design. In fact, she was not sure which aspect of design to specialise in. Not wanting to make the wrong decision about a course of study, she went to work with an ad agency. During this period she found she was drawn to graphic design. Once it became clear to her where her interest lay, she resumed her studies, specialising in graphic design. In effect, the year of work between her two courses of study gave her a “break year” to explore art and get her priorities sorted out. She says, “It [the year] helped me realise what I was good at and what I wanted to learn more about. As my earlier education was in Fine Arts, a broad subject, working at the ad agency helped me gain further knowledge about Graphic Design…”

Mihika has turned what could have been a short period of confusion about what to do next into an advantage. She got hands-on experience and simultaneously gained time to think over a choice of higher education which would end up shaping her life.

Mihika is not alone in this. Many students now take from six months to a year, after their bachelor’s, to explore their interests and evaluate the choices available to them, before choosing a branch of study to specialise in.

Have a plan

Perhaps you have been offered a group you really detest for your postgraduate study, or, perhaps an illness or financial constraint has made it impossible for you to attend college this year, or is it simply that you are in two minds about what to do next? If you find yourself in any of these situations, don’t fret, you can turn it into an advantage by using the gap period in a well-planned manner. As Mihika puts it, “Why waste, say, 10 years working in a field that doesn't keep you completely happy when you can take just one year off and be sure that you will be doing something for the rest of your life that actually does make you happy?”

As in the case of most decisions that take you off the well-trodden path, it’s good to be aware of what you must avoid during the gap year. Do not enter into it without having at least a makeshift plan of how you will spend the time — will you be taking a job or an internship, volunteering to work at an NGO, exhausting a reading list, travelling, working freelance? The list of things one can do to explore the world are numerous, but you must remember that unlike in a college, there is no external compulsion for you to spend the year usefully; it is in your hands entirely.

Changing tracks

Some people actually abandon what they first chose to do and take a break year to think about what they want to do next. Subhiksha Rangarajan had joined a college for MA in Fine Arts but found that she did not like the course at all. So she left the course midway and got a small contract job with a designer, as a fashion illustrator. Being trained in classical music, she also went off on a music tour, performing Carnatic music and also joined a music band. During this period, she got a better idea of her own capabilities and found an interest in management studies. She went on to take up a master’s in media management. While her activity during the break was not directly related to the course she took up later, the experience of doing something that excited and energised her, gave her the impetus to choose right. Looking back on this move, she says, “I feel I made the right move. The time I used for my music classes and concerts were definitely much more useful.”

Know to work

Sometimes a missed deadline can trigger the process, as it did for Vivek Hariharan. After he completed his bachelor’s in civil engineering, he was not sure what to do. By the time he had decided he would like to study structural design engineering in a U.S. college, deadlines had passed. He had to wait a long time before he could take up another course. Instead of just waiting, he joined a construction company that did high-end residential buildings and worked there for the rest of the year. “Although this had nothing to do with what I had been planning to study, it helped in preparing myself to deal with different kinds of people,” he says. Now Vivek works with a construction company in Toronto as project manager and cost engineer. Reflecting on the time he had spent, he says, “At the time, it didn't seem a great decision as the nature of work  was completely different from the design work I intended to specialise in. I felt it had put me back a year in my life. But looking back at it now… I think the time I spent during this break with this company [was] a stepping stone to the kind of work I do now.” 

While it is not necessary to take a break if everything is going according to your plan, it can come as a blessing when things go wrong. If a break presents itself as the only way out, put it to the best use by doing things you enjoy. The very feeling that gives you can clear things up in your head and show you the right direction. That period invested in enjoyable work and thinking about what you really want to do can save you from regret many years later.