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Focus only on your own growth.
GapYear is a time for growth and happiness.
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50th GapperNam-gyu Kim
Gap year period: 2011 - Present
Gap year in Perth, Australia
Currently in South Korea,
Each year, 60,000 middle and high school students drop out, 346,000 people in their twenties are idle with no dreams, and the one-year job turnover rate has entered the 40% range,75% of university students are not satisfied with campus life, and over 80% of workers report not feeling happy.Although many tell people to 'dream', there are no practical methods or support to address this issue,We aim to introduce the 'gap year' in South Korea.
Gap yearIt is a time to either combine studies and work or take a break to engage in various activities such as volunteering, travel, internships, education, and entrepreneurship,a period to set the direction for the future; it is a cultural practice recommended in the United States, Europe, Japan, and other countries.
*Check out various experiential programs on the Gap Year website!
#I was an ordinary college student and was shocked to face reality
I was an ordinary college student.My major was architecture, and personally I really enjoyed design work. Pulling all-nighters for days before a deadline was hard, but staying up with classmates and juniors created many fun memories. I also enjoyed debating problems with no clear answers for hours and the process of gradually realizing things on my own.
Most friends who weren't suited to design changed majors after their first year, but at that time I thought architecture was my path. After my first year I served in the military, and that belief didn't change. I still enjoyed design work and felt proud after a deadline. But as time passed, one fact became clear.
That fact was that I had no talent for design. Even though we started designing on the same site, every time I saw my friends' unique and surprising results I began to feel increasingly anxious. The only consolation was that I still enjoyed design work. I took comfort in that,believing that if I kept enjoying the work, someday I would be able to produce good designs.
It must have been near the end of my third year. One day I was drinking with a close senior who had joined an architectural firm. That senior said to me:
"The design you learn at school is all child's play. When you join a firm you'll have to learn everything from scratch. What we do isn't about coming up with concepts and designing buildings—it's about drawing parking lots and tracing contour lines to meet schedules."
Not only that senior, but many other seniors told me similar things.It was shocking. All I had was enjoyment—no particular flair or strong skill—but now I wasn't even certain about that.What I had been enjoying were the 'child's play' projects at school, and I wasn't confident I could enter a firm and learn a completely different kind of design from scratch.
My head felt cluttered and my chest tightened. I kept thinking, "When I enter my fourth year I'll have to start preparing for jobs—can I get through that with this mindset?"
#So I took a leave of absence
So I took a leave of absence.
Once I went on a trip to Europe with friends. Before that I hadn't even been to Jeju Island; I was a country bumpkin, but Europe felt like a whole new world. From then on I think I began to yearn for life abroad. But I didn't have the money or time to manage it, so I tucked that dream away in a corner of my mind. After taking a leave of absence on a whim, that folded-away dream suddenly looked new again.
I was going to be taking a year off anyway, andWhat reason would I have not to go? Apart from money, there really wasn't any other reason.So I decided to just go. Looking back, I think I pushed ahead so boldly that I even wondered if I was really the indecisive person I used to be.
#Carving My Own Path, Not the One Predefined
I decided to take a gap year, but money was still an issue. My family couldn't afford to send me on a language program, and I, who had only been studying, hadn't saved any money. So while researching ways to live abroad, I learned about working holidays.I decided to go on a working holiday right away.Other than that, there didn't seem to be any other option.
I had decided to go to Australia but didn't have money for a plane ticket right away. So I started a part-time job delivering promissory notes with a friend. It involved taking promissory notes issued by a securities firm to banks for deposit, and the hourly pay was quite high at the time. The work itself was very easy, but the tasks of carefully checking amounts and seals were tricky.
After going back and forth between companies, I began to notice the injustices that exist between large corporations and small businesses, and the internal cultures of companies.It wasn't intentional, but this part-time job gave me an opportunity to reconsider whether working for a company really suited me.
In the end, I saved just enough for the plane ticket and a little pocket money, and set off on a working holiday.The feeling at that time is really hard to put into words.It was a mix of pride at carving my own path instead of following the one already laid out, fear at having stepped off that path, sadness at not being able to see family and friends, and the excitement of finally achieving a dream I had almost given up on.
#If Not Now, I'll Never Get the Chance
To be honest, until I took a leave of absence I was very afraid. Having gone through elementary, middle, high school, and the military, I had followed a path not very different from others, and I was scared that choosing to leave just because I 'wanted to' without a proper plan was the right path. Whenever that anxiety surfaced, I thought this:
'If not now, when will I try something like this? After I join a company? After I become someone's husband and a father? After raising all those children? If not now, I'll never be able to do it.'
I pushed myself with the thought that if I didn't do what I wanted now, it would become harder to do as time went by.
Now or Never. It was a thought I kept repeating in my head at the time.
#Feeling Australia's Relaxed Pace
When I arrived in Australia, the first thing I remember was the people.It was a refreshing shock to see people kindly greet strangers when you made eye contact on the street, to say thank you when getting off the bus, and to say excuse me when passing by in the supermarket.
They always wore relaxed smiles.Besides, you could see the sky no matter where you went in Australia. The sunsets were breathtaking; I thought that if there were a heaven, it might look like this. I felt like I wanted to live in Australia. I decided to attend school there to obtain permanent residency. I decided more easily than I expected.
They say the first time is the hardest; once I deviated from the path once, I felt that from then on it wasn't a predetermined road anyway. Even though it was a major crossroads in my life, I made the decision with a lighter heart than I expected. Perhaps some of their relaxed energy rubbed off on me.
Anyway, I decided to get permanent residency, and luckily found work on a farm; in the evenings I cleaned a gym and worked mornings and evenings. Australian tuition was more expensive than I thought, so I cut down on sleep and worked without days off. However,Because I was working for something I truly wanted to do, even though I worked so much I didn't feel exhausted.
On the contrary, each day was exciting and enjoyable.The best part was that despite working so much, I had more time to think about myself than when I was in Korea.. It wasn't just vague worries about the future, but times when I really looked at who I am. What surprised me was that I didn't know myself as well as I thought. Things like what feelings I held, what I was afraid of, and what kind of life I truly wanted.
I only discovered that I liked writing after coming to Australia.I hadn't specifically planned, "I'll write when I go to Australia," but as I had more time to think here, I naturally began to organize my feelings in writing. Later, I collected the pieces and photos I had written in spare moments and self-published a book.
Of course, I made only a very small number as keepsakes. I handled everything myself from editing to cover design, and it was a very enjoyable process.Besides writing, I tried many things I had always wanted to do.I practiced the guitar and tried home baking. I'm not very good, but I gained many hobbies.
#Received a Publishing Offer
One day the laptop I had suddenly broke. The problem was that the writings I had saved were lost with it. There was quite a lot, and I was so depressed for a while that I could hardly eat. Then a friend recommended "Naver Post" to me. It was a platform with the format "anyone can become a writer," and I started posting my writing there to save it so it wouldn't be lost again.
But something strange happened.Subscribers grew to 10, then 100, and at one point exceeded 1,000.This was my first time experiencing such a thing, so it was surprising. After writing and reading alone, I began to receive feedback from others and read other people's pieces, and I fell more deeply in love with writing. After that, I think I wrote almost every day. I developed the habit of immediately jotting down ideas as they came to me. I worked in a restaurant to save money and attended school, so I was hectic and busy, but each day was full of joy.
Then one day I received an email from a publisher. They wanted to publish my writing as a book.I couldn't believe it. It felt like a dream. Those were the happiest days of my life. While in Australia, I exchanged manuscripts with the head of the publishing team by email and finished the preparations for publication, and even though it was my first published book, it received more love than I expected. It was happiness I would never have had if I hadn't taken a gap year.
#Suddenly Fired
The hardest moment was when I was suddenly fired from the restaurant where I worked.They had promised during the interview to help me obtain permanent residency, so I left the restaurant I had worked at for a long time to join them, but I felt completely betrayed. On the way home after being fired, I felt so miserable. I didn't show it, but I was dazed for about a week.
Gradually I came to my senses and looked back at myself objectively. I got an English score to obtain permanent residency and found a restaurant that said it would sponsor me, but actually I thought of that restaurant as an intermediate step toward getting permanent residency. It wasn't that I wanted to work there; it was just a period I had to endure to get permanent residency. I resolved to work hard.
But to be honest, working there wasn't enjoyable. Or, to be more precise, at some point staying in Australia had changed from 'what I want to do' to 'what I have to do.' I thought it over carefully. Was I still truly wanting to live in Australia, or was I holding on only because I didn't want the money and time I had prepared or invested so far to go to waste? At some point I was just enduring.
Like the period of preparing for employment to enter a large company in Korea, I too was blindly pursuing permanent residency that I had started out of a longing for an easy life. Only the location had changed; I was still sacrificing the present for the future. This sudden dismissal taught me one thing: that something forced can fail just as easily.
#The way to become happy is to do the things that make me happy right now
No one can guarantee the future. No matter how much I endure the present for the future, a 100% certain future will not necessarily arrive. But there is one sure way to become happy.That is to do the things that make me happy right now.I realized that through my gap year.
The times when I did what I truly loved and miraculously got published, and the times when I forced myself to do work I hated and got fired, may all have been mere coincidences. You can be frustrated while doing what you love, and you might succeed greatly doing work you don't like. But in the end, the standards of success and failure are determined by me.
If I fill the present with things that make me happy right now, my future self will surely look back on this time and smile.
When I thought this far, I felt that staying in Australia no longer made sense. Right now I am preparing to return to Korea and open my own shop. Because I'm doing what I want to do, work has become enjoyable again, and the preparation process is simply joyful.
#Developing the habit of focusing on myself
The biggest change is that, instead of spending time comparing myself to others, I developed the habit of focusing on myself. At some point when I start work, I began to focus on 'do I really want to do this' rather than worrying about what others think. Naturally, my self-esteem seems to have increased. It's also why, even after finishing all the preparations for permanent residency, I can return to Korea without regret.From now on, I want to keep trying to live doing work that excites me right now.
I am currently serializing a fairy-tale column in the Korean economic magazine MONEY. I also sometimes write columns for the company newsletter. I'm preparing so that my next book can be published within this year, and I'm also preparing to open my own shop.Now that I think about it, I'm doing things I never imagined I would when I was a university student.Indeed, nobody can predict people's lives.
#Gap Year; Time to focus on the present you used to always sacrifice for the future
If you have planned a gap year, I hope you'll at least focus on the things you want to do during that time.A gap year is a moment for that. It's a time to focus on the present that you always deferred to the future.So it's good to set the purpose of your gap year clearly before you start. If you're not clear about what you want, you won't be able to concentrate. If it's study, study. If it's reflection, reflect. If it's experience, experience. Otherwise, you'll end up just wasting time.
#A word to young people in Korea planning a gap year
I knew myself less than I thought. Not just me, but young people in Korea who have lived busy lives probably haven't had the time to listen to their own stories. A life spent running busily is also fine.Still, I hope you'll at least try to find out who the 'real' you is.Because living so busily that you forget yourself somehow feels a little sad.
Perhaps the reason we are so tired is that we gradually forget ourselves amid busy times. In the end, all the answers lie within yourself. Once you know yourself, you may naturally get a sense of how you should live. I hope more people regain themselves through a gap year. Hang in there, all young people planning a gap year.
'100 Gap Years' is not about mentors found on TV or in books.It tells the stories of people who acted a little earlier and showed a little more courage than I did.We hope the stories of 100 people who faced similar situations and had similar concerns will offer you a small help when important decisions come in your life.
Recommendations and submissions for '100 Gap Years' are always welcome.
Please leave a comment or message, or email marketing manager Jo Hae-in (dorothy224@koreagapyear.com)!