What I Did During My Gap Year

I bet it’s hard to imagine, but I had a lot of indecisiveness regarding WHAT I wanted to do for my gap year. Google was my best friend and I, as I do for most major decisions in my life, read article after article, video after video to see if anything stuck.

I knew I wanted to complete an intentional year of volunteer work. My mission has always been to work on the margins of society, so I was sure that I wanted to volunteer. Some people might think I’m crazy for earning a total of $0 when I could have made probably $30K or so working as a MA, but call me crazy!

With that intention in mind, I began looking at major volunteer programs around the country and world. My undergraduate university, Notre Dame, has a pretty rigorous Center for Social Concerns that I engaged with heavily throughout my college years. They were great at identifying options for me to pursue.

I originally wanted to do something like Teach for America in my gap year. However, while I am crazy, I’m not a lunatic. I had my head on straight enough to know that I needed 2000 clinical hours before applying to PA school and that would mean that I would need to gain clinical hours during my gap year. While I wanted to teach, at the end of the day I had to do what was practical to get me to my next step- PA school. With that in mind, I forfeited my desire to teach and instead turned to opportunities that would afford me the necessary clinical hours.

After much consideration, I had applied to roughly 10 different programs across the country and world. I finally narrowed it down to one- the Peace Corps. It was perfect. An intentional 2 years of volunteering in an area of the world (Rwanda) and area of medicine (maternal health) that energized me. Ah, but something didn’t feel right. I slowly started to feel that the challenges of a Peace Corps experience might actually be draining for me (i.e. loneliness, language barriers, isolation, and >2 years of actual training/volunteering). While of course, this is not every Peace Corp volunteer’s experience in the slightest, my specific site was going to bring these realities. I eventually retracted my acceptance and was again at square one.

So, what did I finally find? The most perfect experience fell into my lap. A Notre Dame alum told me about a service experience she did in Washington DC for a year before beginning her medical school career. Bingo! I applied and was accepted.

My service year was kind of like Americorps, but through a different volunteer corps. It was 12 months and located in Washington DC. I was a medical assistant at a pregnancy and women’s health clinic serving uninsured patients in Maryland. Gaining clinical hours? Check. Working in my desired specialty? Check. Living in community with other volunteers? Check. Having a stipend that I could actually live off of? Check. Living in an amazing and unique city? Check. I got a once in a lifetime experience that ended up meeting essentially every need of mine. The work was challenging, meaningful, eye opening, heartbreaking, and about a thousand other emotions. It was an unbelievable year that I wouldn’t trade for the world.

While it took a lot of intention, research, trying and failing, indecisiveness, and energy, I ended up finding a gap year opportunity that was perfect for me and I know you can too. A gap year can be one of the most challenging yet rewarding years of your life and I encourage you to pursue it with intention. Give yourself time to really consider what you want to get out of your gap year, what are your “must haves” and “deal breakers”, and what you realistically need to get you to your final destination. Enjoy the ride!

Check out my related post Should You Take A Gap Year