When you look around, friends, seniors, and juniors alike are all leading busy lives: classes, studying English, building various credentials... Living each day working so hard and waiting for a happy moment to come—does that sound like your life?
A Gap Year is what can change a life that feels like a hamster running in a wheel—running and running but staying in the same place. When you're trapped in everyday life, you run hard each day without knowing where you're going or where you want to go. But at some point you realize you've lost your direction and begin to wander.
For me, the Gap Year was like a compass that set the direction of my life. The major I entered university for, based on my scores, was "Agriculture." It was completely different from my dream of studying traditional Korean medicine, so I lost my goal and wandered until my second year of university. Deciding that things couldn't continue like that, I chose my first Gap Year: traveling around the world. For 365 days I traveled through 39 countries across Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, giving myself time to observe myself completely. Familiar aspects of myself—those I had been aware of, and even those I hadn't known—were discovered as I bumped up against new environments and new people. It was a journey to unfamiliar countries, but also a journey to an unfamiliar self, so I spent an exciting year with no time to be bored.
ⓒKorea Gapyear
What I wanted to find through travel was the answer to just one question: 'What should I do with my life to be happy?' It's a simple question that everyone in their early twenties—or later—asks, but it's hard to answer. While traveling, meeting and talking with travelers from many countries and various local people, I realized that there are so many different ways of living. It seemed really admirable to me that people don't live a life taught by someone else—as often happens in Korea—but instead find the way of life that makes them happy and live it.
I discovered that meeting people and learning about culture in a new country excited me to the point my heart would race, and I also learned from seeing many people in poor regions that I could find satisfaction not in my own comfort but in helping those with difficult lives. So I set off on my second Gap Year—international volunteer work—and through that experience I clearly decided the direction I wanted to move forward.
My major, agriculture—which had seemed dull and unappealing when I had no goal—has now become a tool to help feed the poor and hungry around the world. I am now working to realize my dream of becoming an international activist to help the world's hungry.
The Gap Year that became a compass for me when I was wandering will be a turning point that can change your life.
You should take a Gap Year too!
ⓒKorea Gapyear
Kim Nam-ho
Managed a farm in Paraguay, South America for 28 months
Led the Korea-Brazil genetic resources exchange activation project
Representative of the volunteer team at a presidential Blue House briefing
Lecturer for KOICA overseas volunteer training, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Back to List