4 Things to Know About Taking a Gap Year During Covid

Though Isaac Newton might disagree, seeing as he was forced to leave Cambridge due to the Bubonic Plague, it seems appropriate to classify the conditions around higher education in 2020 as “unprecedented.”

Confusion and chaos loom, with uncertainty over returns to campus, online education, tuition reductions (or lack thereof); all are topical and timely, thrusting high school seniors and college students alike into a sense of panic and anxiety. And justifiably so.

This has been one long year of making adjustments.

The phrase “gap year” has exploded on Google Trends, and the fraction of students considering time off is higher than ever before in living memory. As students around the world contemplate the day-to-day reality of online tuition, or in-person tuition that risks infection, many are seeing the possibility of time off in a new light.

Where before the phrase “gap year” elicited reactions ranging from awe and excitement at the new and unexplored, to disappointment in delaying magical college years, 2020 has rebranded it, tacking on an additional, inescapable, connotation: COVID.

For some, this means a whole year off; for others, perhaps just one quarter or semester before a return to collegiate life. In any case, some important questions being grappled with are: Is it safe to take a gap year? What should one consider if taking a gap year during COVID? What makes time off the right choice for one person, but not for another? What is it possible to do?

If you’ve answered some of these questions and are exploring potential ideas or more seriously considering taking a gap year during COVID or beyond, covidgapyears.com is a free source of gap year stories and advice, by students who have taken time off due to the virus.

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Is it safe to take a gap year right now?

The all-important question: safety. The virus has ravaged millions of lives, leveraging our interconnected and globalized world to spread from Wuhan to ubiquity. Before one considers taking a gap year during COVID, they must consider safety—their own as well as that of others they are around.

For the sake of safety, *all* travel this year (if any) should be solo travel.

The fact that the virus disproportionally affects older people is no reason for younger students considering time off to disregard it, both because there have been mortalities in healthy young people, as well as because by acting carelessly they might put others who aren’t so lucky in grave danger.

In general, it would seem that taking time off is probably safer than going to school in person, but the balances tip if you’re comparing remote learning to a gap year centered around travel and social experiences, both of which are poised to be severely restricted in the next year.

Think carefully about whether you’re part of a population at risk, or whether you spend lots of time around someone who is, and use that as data to inform the decision about continuing college vs. taking time off.

4 things to consider when planning your gap year during Covid

1. Travel restrictions

Just as collegiate life will be heavily restricted, so will the things you can do during a gap year. For the same reasons that colleges are restricting athletics, large lectures, parties, conferences, and more, going to conferences, festivals, and even meeting interesting people can be a lot more difficult.

There are trade-offs to be made: Some people believe in-person meetings and social encounters are much more valuable than their virtual counterparts. Where you lie on the spectrum, and the extent to which you’re planning on your gap year being an intensely social experience, is something you’ll have to take into account.

And aside from restrictions on social events, there are currently travel restriction in place too; many countries are preventing Americans from entering because the US has a markedly higher COVID incidence rate compared to the world at large.

So if international travel is something you imagined would form the centerpiece of your experience, maybe the risk-reward equation for you is different to someone who desperately wanted to do a bunch of reading but never had time, since there aren’t any restrictions on that sort of work—which, in fact, would probably be safer and cheaper than any alternative at the moment.

2. Creative alternatives are available

Just as there are tons of things now impracticable due to the virus, there are other things—once considered less appealing or glamorous for those taking time off—that are now commensurately more rewarding.

Taking a gap year during COVID is risky—so research alternative ways to spend your time off.

For example, self-education, whether that entails reading about things you’d never learn about at college, taking courses in subjects unrelated to your degree/major, or picking up new skills like cooking and cross-country running (social distanced, of course).

Moreover, there are a lot of interesting people cooped up in their homes around the world, who’d love to hop on a call or email correspondence with you and have a discussion. So feel free to ping that author whose book you disagreed with, or that journalist who wrote a riveting exposé, for that might be an interesting potential discussion (and who knows, possible friendship) in the making.

The fact that it’s also more difficult to engage in an intense, hectic gap year spent traveling place to place meeting tons of people is in and of itself an advantage. Take time to actively reflect, spend time with family, and think on what path they’re walking in school, why, and whether that’s really what they’re interested in for the right reasons.

These reflections, coupled with thought-provoking conversations with interesting people, as well as a broadened literary palate come together to be a powerful catalyst for the onset and development of career and academic maturity. 

3. Have a contingency plan

Though tempting it is to plan out the entirety of taking a gap year during COVID, this year and time more generally is unprecedented in the uncertainty it brings with it. While travel is severely restricted now, a vaccine might be developed and deployed in the next 3 months that brings travel back to peak by the end of 2020.

Alternatively, additional complications or strains of the virus may pose unforeseen difficulties, extending lockdowns and keeping travel restricted well into 2021. There’s just no way to know, and it’s a good idea to keep plans beyond the next 1-3 months fluid when taking time off.

This advice has never been more relevant or pertinent than today, where we’re all in a rapidly evolving situation where more and more information is being revealed about the disease, its pathology, public health, economic impact, and more.

You might just get some use out of that 2020 planner after all!

But this uncertainty doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider the future at all. It just means that you should be making contingency plans, as is always a good idea. Instead of fixating on that interrailing trip across Europe you’ve always wanted to do, maybe pencil in another couple of ideas for alternative realities.

Think about things like becoming a chess master if you’re stuck indoors, or working on the front lines if you’re allowed to work but not to travel internationally. This brings us to the final, but by no means the least important or even exhaustive, consideration.

4. Program costs and value of working

Now more than ever, staffing essential businesses is a way of providing outsized impact to your communities, since the people that might traditionally staff grocery stores, clinics, and more, are high-risk populations.

What’s more, instead of paying exorbitant amounts for an online college education, you’d end up resuming college much better off than if you’d continued. Work experience more broadly is humbling at an early age, as it reinforces the fragility of economic and social institutions, and the important and powerful role that determined individuals can play in them.

Small acts of kindness and determination on your behalf have disproportionate consequences—even if it’s tutoring someone struggling with math—and working to earn a living wage thrusts that reality in front of people like few other things can.

For many, the most rewarding part of time off is the maturity, self-sufficiency, and confidence that comes with knowing that you’re capable of earning and sustaining yourself while contributing to wider society; there are few times in human history that value the labor contributions of young people than modern pandemic-riddled society. So do consider working in some capacity if you decide to take time off.

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Take time to decide the right time for your gap year

Once it’s safe and you’re ready, your gap year will be waiting.

Above all, it’s important to avoid groupthink. The risk-reward equation varies greatly from person to person, and so considering or planning taking a gap year during COVID based on the thoughts or actions of those around you can be dangerous, even if tempting.

Your interests, goals, and risk factors can vary starkly from those you think are in similar situations, so when considering and planning time off, make sure to plan a gap year for yourself, not for someone else—an easy mistake to make when all your college friends are sharing details about the cool internships or travels they have planned for their time off.

Working on the front lines as an essential worker, or doubling down on your academics, though less glamorous, may be better ways to spend your time.

Browse ALL Gap Year Programs on GoAbroad.com

CovidGapYears.com is a free resource collating hundreds of gap year stories for students considering time off of school due to the coronavirus. Besides providing extensive information from gappers themselves, its matching algorithm connects students based on interests and goals to gappers who are best positioned to mentor them for free. In a few short weeks since launch, CovidGapYears has had tens of thousands of hits and several thousand active users.