 So should I take a gap here before starting medical school? Is it even worth it? What should I even do? In this video guys, we're going to talk about how a gap here can be so effective and take that from somebody who took one himself. Let's get to it. All right guys, what is going on? Luxury of an empty journey helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. If you're new to this channel, first of all, welcome. I'm an internal medicine resident that makes weekly videos on helping people just like you on their medical journey through study tips, productivity, and so much more. So if this video hits home to you, or if you want more tips just like this one, make sure you hit that subscribe button and smash that like button while you're at it to help this video on the YouTube algorithm and make this channel grow even faster. So in this video guys, we are talking about gap years and basically what to do and at the very end of this video also be giving your resources for you pre-meds who are looking to get a little bit of an edge on your medical applications and trying to get into your number one choice. But let's get to the topic of this video which is gap years as a word that's let me give you a little bit of my backstory. So I also did a gap year for one year before starting medical school and I basically did it because I managed to finish my undergrad degree a year early. So I graduated in three years for financial reasons. So I had a whole year off but I didn't want to jump straight into medical school because applying to med school is already stressful as is. So I chose to work for a year and I actually worked as an applied behavioral analysis therapist, a behavioral therapist, ABA therapist and I worked specifically with kids with autism. So I was able to work one-on-one with autistic kids and basically using ABA which is essentially positive reinforcement to increase habits that we wanted the kid to improve on like language, social development, communication and avoid other types of behaviors that maybe we wanted to decrease such as stereotyping as well as like anger issues that many kids with autism can have. And it was an amazing job. Honestly, it's probably my most favorite years of my life besides this one because I've had so many cool things happen to me. Graduated med school, getting married, starting residency, moving to a new place but that year was so much fun and the kids that I worked with are still in my memory to this day. So gap years are great. So let's talk about you know why someone would take a gap year. There's a couple of reasons. One, you just need a break. Going through college and then med school. A lot of my peers who knew that I took a gap year really wish. Now like man, I wish I took one too. Unfortunately you can't really circle back. You can take some gap years here in med school but it's a little bit harder. So it's better to do it if you're considering it in between because while you do lose a year, it really doesn't do much in the grand scheme of things. So if you're somebody who's feeling burnt out or just don't feel like you have the mental fortitude and need that relaxation or just a transition to something else before you jump back into medical school which is very time intensive and requires a lot of mental energy, it's a good idea to take a break and think of some of the things to do during a gap year. Reason number two of choosing a gap year is just that you want to explore. Maybe one, you're not convinced that going to medical school is a career path for you. Maybe you're interested in medicine or maybe you're considering two fields in medicine or maybe you're just considering something outside of medicine. It's a great time to say well I'm going to do something during this time to see if medical school would be the right path and no one's going to fault you for taking that gap year to understand yes or no but if you end up doing applying from med school you can actually use that gap year saying I was interested in this and this I chose to explore this instead of med school for a year and I realized I didn't like it. So here I'm in med school and all those reasons that I thought that I want to come to medical school are true and here I am. And then the final reason that a lot of students will take a gap year is just to build experience especially if you want to get into medical school, don't feel like your application is strong enough, need some time to boost up your GPA or MCAT or just your overall CP and those are all fine reasons. So now let's talk about what are some things that you can do during your gap year. So as I alluded to at the start of this video there really isn't one right thing. All I'd recommend is you're doing something that would make your application look a little bit different. So don't just do the generic thing that a lot of your classmates are doing. Working in a medical industry is obviously recommended because then it's very easy to convince a reviewer that you still want to go to medical school. I worked as a therapist which is a little bit in the medical industry but it's also out of left field so it was unique. But you could also do something such as being a scribe, getting your EMT license and basically working on the front lines of medicine and healthcare. You can work on the front desk of the clinic of a physician and get to know the physician better or you can volunteer for free. You don't have to necessarily work. You can volunteer free healthcare clinics. You can become a research assistant and get involved in that side of medicine. There's so many opportunities just to ask yourself how can I use as a stepping stone to convince somebody I want to go to medical school and I just didn't take the time off to be lazy. And lastly guys let's talk about some benefits pros and cons of taking a gap year. Some of the benefits is that you get that extra year of becoming more relaxed and so when you start medical school you're kind of excited to get back into the books and a lot of my classmates who just took their finals in May are now taking their biochem test in August and they're already just like burnt out or for me it's been over a year since I've touched an exam. It was kind of cool to get back into it. I mean I hate biochem but still you know what I mean. So getting back into it is much easier after you've had that long break. That's definitely a benefit. Benefit number two that people don't talk about is that if you work you get to develop some cash reserve and make some money and I was definitely able to do that. I was able to save some money to invest to save for my wedding that I just had, pay for other expenses in medical school. So just having that time to basically be an adult for the first time for a lot of us, see a paycheck, be able to pay it for any loans that you may have, that's pretty cool. And then last benefit that people don't talk about is that you can interview for medical school without having the stresses of asking for your finals to be adjusted or trying to work around your class schedule. You just tell your employer or whatever you're doing saying hey I'm applying to medical school. These are the dates I'm having an interview and then ask for those days off and ideally you're doing a job where they're pretty flexible. But it's much easier asking for days off from work than it is from trying to work around your school schedule. Now some of the negatives of taking a gap year. One, you're losing a year of your life and just getting behind. I honestly don't think that's that big of a deal in knowing how much longer you have left to go. One year is not going to make too much difference especially if you make the most of your gap year. Number two is that it just still may not work out in terms of you getting into medical school. Some people will do the gap year to build experience or retake their MCAT but when they apply again they still don't get accepted. So it's not a guarantee it may help you have a different wrinkle on your application but just know it's not a done deal. And finally knowing that if you do a gap year it is going to be a little bit of a transition as it was for me and a lot of people who are non-traditional students to get back into medical school. And the grind that comes with it to learning how to study or remembering how you study so that is something to be said. So during the gap year I definitely recommend just re-familiarizing yourself how you study if you don't have to like go read a book or anything and like give a test. But just ask yourself how am I going to study in medical school? You can use those months before medical school starts to just kind of re-familiarize yourself. So in the grand scheme of things guys do I recommend a gap year absolutely if it benefits you knowing the things that we talked about pros and cons. If you guys have a specific question make sure you comment down below or send me a private message at themdjourney.com at gmail.com. And finally if you are a pre-med and you just want those tips to just make your application like shoe for the stars bomb.com just be able to separate yourself from the pack. Definitely check out two resources I'll recommend. One is the pre-med blueprint which is of course I created that step by step on everything I'd recommend that you do that I did to help me get on basically every medical school that I interviewed at to get an acceptance. That's something that you want to do. The link of the course will be down below. And also if you just want something a little bit easier to consume than videos then you can check out my book the pre-med journey on Amazon which is only 99 cents right now for a Kindle version which also covers kind of a step by step blueprint. So hopefully you guys check one of those out. Let me know in the description if you guys have any questions. And before you leave before you leave did you hit that like button though make sure you hit it but afterwards you should consider watching one of these two videos. I know I do this a lot but I just can't decide. So this one that's one both good so pick one and I'll see you guys in the next one.