 Okay, not to brag, but this is the perfect YouTube video. Before we get started with this kombucha, raspberry lemon, it's stunning. Hi everybody, welcome to my channel. My name is Katie, if you have never been here before. In 2020, I took a fun little surprise gap year. In that time, I made this YouTube channel, then I studied abroad, then I came back to college, and I finished my degree. I am making the perfect YouTube video because I want you all to show this to your parents when they're like, oh, I don't think you should take a gap year. They're not very productive. Like, what if you do nothing? You're gonna put this on and I'm gonna be like, hey parents, would you like to see my academic medal? What's my medal? That says honor student. Taking a gap year, right? When I was graduating high school, it was like absolutely not the norm. Nobody took one. I went to a very rigorous high school and there were a couple girls that were taking gap years and I remember the narrative around this was that that was kind of a mistake for them. That they should just go right into college and they're gonna be behind and they kind of seem lost and they don't know what they're doing. And to that, I am going to respond with this video because taking my accidental gap year with a pandemic hit was the best thing to happen to me or none ever. Not to be like COVID was the best thing ever because it wasn't, that was awful. A lot of people passed away. However, it forced me to, it forced my hand to take a gap year because the field that I'm in is called arts management and it was at the time, the entire arts industry was completely shut down and dead. So I was like, you know what? Maybe I'll just give it a minute. Maybe I'll just, maybe I'll just take some time off. To give you guys some context, I have always been a relatively good student. Like I'm not gonna sit here and be like, I took a gap year and suddenly I became like so much smarter and like I worked way more hard at school because that's not really what happened and I think it's a lot more nuanced than that, but I think that it's really important to have these conversations because having a passion for something and not feeling lost are a really big component to doing well in school and like getting what you actually can out of it, not just a grade because grades are good at the end of the day but I cannot sit here and tell you that the grades that I got straight A's in are where I learned the most. The grades where I really, really struggled to even like to get a B. Those are the class that I usually learned the most in is where I really had to work for it, ask for help and I delved into the topics like way more. So I'm just kind of trying to like set this up in a way that like learning is not a grade because I have made a ton of other videos about what you can do on a gap year. Feel free to also pass it aggressively, show your parents those. I'm just kidding parents. I just, I just think it's, you should, you know but on my gap year, I spent time in a real job spending time in a real office job. I think is a really important experience for someone who is young. There are jobs like, you know, working in a restaurant or working, you know, like retail and all those things can be tasters of the professional world but until you actually test out the field that you're going into and see what, you know, a day to day could look like. You really think that you have a full perspective on if this is something that you really could see yourself doing every day and I'm not saying that what you go to college for is like what you absolutely have to do after you graduate because that is not necessarily true at all. Most people do not have a job in what they studied in college and that's just like an objective truth. If you have a little bit more of that perspective it is going to be easier for you to go into your field of study with A, some experience being actually in the field, having like applicable like conversation starters, discussion points when you're in class, even things that you can relate from real life experiences to books you're reading or like materials that you're supposed to follow for that class. For me, there's a really big conversation going on with de-accessioning in the museum industry right now and I spent an entire year working in a museum's collection. So basically like going through boxes and boxes of things that were in this museum's, you know, storerooms and when we got to that section in like my law class talking about like accessioning and de-accessioning these items, I had something like pretty substantial to contribute to the conversation about that. It allowed me to put myself into these academic what if situations sort of like case studies because I had actually been in a real room where these things were happening day after day for a year. Number two is, I think this is a really important point. So like stay with me for the whole video cause I'm going to get to like student part and this is really part of being a student. But if you're confused about what you want to do with your life and you don't know what you want to major in college, testing some things out can be a great way to even see if you like that area. But then also for number two of this point of taking time off to work, it really kind of shatters your illusion with what adulthood and contributing to society actually is and what it feels like. If you're only perspective from age and from kindergarten to senior year of high school is school, you have this very routine structure where you have time built in to do your hobbies, to be around friends, to take in care of in a way. And when you go to college you have to learn all those things by yourself like of course. And that is a great way to sort of figure that out. But taking some time off to actually work day after day it shows you the importance of an education if that's something that you want to do. Because maybe at the end of your gap year that isn't what you want to do. And I think that's totally fine as well. Basically having that experience of working day after day for an entire year it kind of removes that guesswork of what your adult life is supposed to feel like. Because sometimes work can be like even if it is in your dream field like it's to work. And I think that that is a really important experience to have because it can show you that A, maybe I'm not so passionate about this thing because this is actually what it looks like on the day to day. Or maybe it can show you okay, well let me test out this other job that I could potentially like because it might make me more money. It might lend to a better lifestyle that I could see myself having for a longer stretch of time. There are so many other components to having a job and how your education can lead to that. Having that work experience can really guide you towards not only like a job that you wanna have but sort of like what your lifestyle could look like in a particular industry doing what job. If that makes any sense, I hope that makes sense. Cause I think it's one of the most important things that I took away. Like it just gave me like a very grounded perspective on the adult world. And it sort of made me less afraid of going after my passions, if that makes any sense. Cause I was like I have to work for the rest of my life. Why would I not try to do something every day that like I know I'm really gonna care about. So when I came back to my actual studies at my college for my senior year, I had taken a gap year then I went and I studied abroad in Scotland for a year. So when I came back to school, I had had this like totally flipped perspective on like the American education system and also just I had time off from school finally. So when I came back, I sort of noticed I had much more of a like a firm grasp on like the game of school, if that makes any sense. Because I go to a liberal arts college and this year I had to take astronomy. I'm not very good at astronomy, not very passionate about astronomy, math, all that kind of stuff. I think it's really cool to learn about like the concepts and things but when it comes to like looking at spectral lines on like a little graph, like my brain just goes like this. It just like glazes over on like I don't, this is never gonna be something that like I ever cared to learn. I'm a terrible person for saying that but like there are certain things that like ignite you and you're like, oh, I really wanna learn about that. And then there are other things where you're like, I am never ever gonna, it may be if I applied myself really, really hard I could be good at this but also like I'm really busy and I am trying to do all of these other things in my life, like I have priorities now. So when I came back this year, I did well in astronomy, like I'm not saying like I completely gave up but I think once you have some time away from school you realize that there are just like certain buckets that you have to fill up but then there are other classes where like I really poured like my heart and my soul into going to astronomy every day with a big smile on my face like with my notebook ready being like, yes, I'm so excited to learn about astronomy, not really. Did I get, did I get an okay grade because I came to class, filled up my participation points, I did the little assignments that didn't take me very long but I just filled up the bucket to get the grade that I wanted. Yeah, and at the end of it, did I learn a little bit about astronomy? Yeah, and I think it's a cool topic, I can talk about it a little bit but am I ever going to be able to explain to you what a spectral line is? No. Cause I don't remember it now and this was, I took this class last semester so this semester ended like three weeks ago. Another great thing that helped me appreciate school was, you know, taking time on a gap year to work is great. Taking time to travel, I think is also great. You can build this into your college experience and that is something that I really recommend. I think perspective is one of the most important things that you can bring to anything in your life. Trying to learn as much as possible, not just from books, not just from, you know, experiences but from talking to other people, from going, I guess that's an experience. I, you know what I'm trying to say. There are so many other ways to learn and to be a part of the world and to shift your perspective on things that are important to you. And for me, talking to people from other countries when I was in Scotland really reshaped the way that I thought about my education because in Scotland, for example, they have, if you're a Scottish citizen, you get to go to college for free. So it is a very different conversation than if you're talking to somebody in America because college is sort of this thing where it's like, you will not, you know, you'll never have a career if you don't go to college. Like that is sort of the narrative that is sold to you before. Like you have to go to college to, you know, to make it in this world. Which now it feels like you have to go to grad school to make it or you have to do, you know, all of this other school, like we're all becoming more educated. So it's like so competitive nowadays, which is why pulling up your perspectives is really important. I did a video with World Packers. If you don't know what that is, I'll link the video down below. Basically, I went to go live in like this, like a hostel, it's like a whole little hotel. And it was owned by this guy named Lewis. And we went to go live with him and meet my friend. And then this other girl, Megan, who was so sweet. And we all lived together and we worked and we like cohabitated for a week. One night we were all out at the pub in like this little teeny town. And we started talking to this guy who we had met earlier in the week because, no, it was earlier that day because we were, there was a big grand opening of the only Chinese food restaurant in this town. This town is very, very small. It was a, it was a chippy and it was just like a fish and chip shop and a Chinese food place like mixed together. Anyway, it was a disaster, the opening night. It was so funny, not for the kids running the place, but it was like a lot of angry Scottish people like yelling and it was, then a lot of people just being like, whoa, that's kind of crazy. And so we started talking to this guy. I met him at the pub later. He was like 45, he was a physics teacher and he went to St. Andrews with like Princess Kate and William and like, what a weird conversation. What like an odd, cool person that I got to talk to. Like that's so cool. But I remember it was like, he's a physics teacher, has a degree in like astrophysics from like one of the best universities in the world and it was completely free. And I just thought that was like, I just thought that was so interesting. And I feel like the culture in the UK is a little bit more about like being well-read and like being like a member of society. The culture is more like, there's more emphasis on like an education is something that you can have, not something that like gets you something to have, which like in America, I feel like it's less about like being well-read and like having a lot of knowledge on a topic. It's more about like that stepping stone to that high paying job. Where I feel like the culture is like somewhat flipped where it's like, just go to college for whatever you want. Yeah, there are, there's still talks about like, oh, what are you gonna do with that after you go to college? Whatever, there's always gonna be that. But I feel like it's way less than I have experienced here in America. So, and it just, it really changed my perspective on school and what I can get out of it. And like, I absolutely love having conversations about my field of study. Anytime I can talk about it or if there's stuff going on in the news, like I think it is so interesting to talk about. I have this really like wide breadth of knowledge about the arts world. I just, that's really cool. And maybe I won't end up doing that, but maybe I will. And either way, I do not regret my degree choice. And I feel like I have a unique perspective to bring to any job that I might go into. I never would have had that experience. I never would have had those opportunities to grow my perspective if I didn't take a gap year and if I didn't, you know, travel and try to meet new people and have new experiences. All of that is something that I brought back to my education this year. I hope this video was good. I know it was like all very kind of like theoretical and this wasn't supposed to be like, oh, when I came back to school, like, oh, I got better at taking notes. Like, it was really just a change in my mindset. I feel like it was the most valuable thing that I got out of both of those experiences. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking some time off because I am 23, I'm gonna be 24. I am moving to London to pursue grad school. Like, I am exactly where I want to be. And if I had never taken my gap year, I never would have started a YouTube channel which pretty much got me into grad school. So there is a reason for everything. And if you were the type of person who's gonna make the most out of every situation or you think that you're that type of person, you gotta give yourself a chance to try and taking some time off really lets you sit with, you know, what type of person do I want to be? What do I want to contribute to the world? You know, what is on my mind when I go to sleep at night that like gets me out of bed in the morning? And I think that those are really important things that you can explore on a gap year. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video but leave your comments down below. I'd love to hear from you. And I hope you guys all have a really great day. Thanks for watching. Ta-da. Pa-pa-ra-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa. Pa-pa. Pa-pa-ra-pa-pa. Pa-pa-ra-pa-ra-pa-pa-pa.