So, you're a senior in college.  You've put in your time, and you're counting the days until you don that cap and gown.  But, you know that your future plans will include some sort of advanced schooling - medical school, pharmacy school, veterinary school, graduate school, etc.  And you are dreading it.  How could you possibly endure 4 more years of school?  You're so excited to have some time to yourself, and to spend your evenings doing whatever you want rather than slaving away over homework and textbooks.  But, you're scared about how the time off will affect you--will you forget the material, will you lose all your good habits, will you - god forbid - end up not going back??

Those are all valid questions.  They were all questions that my father posed to me when he got nervous about the time I intended to take off after graduation.  Two years seemed like a lifetime to him.  Though I explained my reasoning time and time again, he wasn't comfortable.  His discomfort made me question my decision.  But, now I'm so glad that I made the choices I did.  

So, let me give you ten reasons why I believe you should take some time off before graduate school.

1. You deserve a break. This is an easy one. I said it before, and I'll say it again - you put in your time, you logged those man hours at the library, and you made the grade.  So, you deserve some time to enjoy yourself. Now, I'm not saying don't get a job and become a mooch.  Put in your 40 hours a week, but spend your evenings and weekends doing all those things that got put on the back burner while you were in school.  Explore old hobbies, new hobbies - whatever! Go on some adventures! Travel! Go out too much! Just have some fun, because you deserve it!

2. You need to make some money. Many of us leave college with dept. So, before jumping in to another potentially debt-inducing situation, take some time off to earn some money and hopefully pay some of that debt back.  And, if you didn't leave school in debt, that's great! But, depending upon the type of graduate education you're going into, you will probably accumulate some debt while you're in school. So, take the opportunity to work and save now.  You'll thank yourself for it in the long run.  

3. You need to gain some real world experience.  Let's face it - college isn't like the real world in any way shape or form. So, once you've graduated, take the opportunity to start experiencing it.  Work a 9-5 job. Cut the cord from mom and dad if you haven't already and learn to cook, learn how to do your own taxes, and learn to budget. Budgetting is going to be huge in graduate school, so if you learn now  you'll thank yourself for it later.  Anything you can learn in your time off will be a huge benefit, and you want have to figure things out with a huge to-do pile breathing down your neck.  In science, having experience working as a technician or something prior to starting graduate school will be a huge bonus, and will look so good on your applications.  Having the opportunity to experience the real world, real science, and a real lab full-time are huge pluses to taking time off from school.  

4. You need to focus on you. I'm going to make the assumption that you put a lot of things in your personal life on hold during school, because I certainly did. Taking some time off from school allows you to re-center yourself on, well, yourself.  For me, taking time off from school allowed me to 1) improve my health and fitness (Weight Watchers was during this time for me), explore my personal and spiritual development, and spend some time enjoying my love life.  A lot of these things went on the back burner for me during school, and I'm sure you experience something similar. So, utilize your time off to really figure these things out for yourself.

5. You'll refine your interests.  Time off also enables to explore your interests. I'm not really talking hobbies here, so much as I'm talking career interests.  With a lot of technical fields, particularly science, there are so many directions you can take your career.  Time off from school really enables you to explore your options and figure out what your interests really are.  

6. You'll have time for test prep. Every graduate and professional school requires some sort of exam for admission. Whether you're taking the GRE, PCAT, LSAT, or - god forbid!! - the MCAT, you'll have a lot of studying to do, am I right? For some of these exams, the studying can be a full time job in and of itself. I have a friend who had the financial means to forego working and just study for the MCAT as her full-time job.  For some of these exams, it might take you that much time to fully absorb the material.  Taking time off from school better enables you to study because your evenings aren't spent doing homework.  

7. You'll make a better decision about the kind of program you want to join. This kind of piggy-backs off of reason #5, but I'm hoping to make a bigger point here that is directed at scientists.  When I graduated, there were so many options of what to do next that seemed viable for me. I could have gone to medical school to pursue an MD. I could have gone into and MD/PhD program. I could have just gotten a PhD. I would have gone into a medical technology internship. I could have pursued infectious diseases, immunology, microbiology, microbial sciences, pathogenesis, pathology, etc.  These may seem like very similar fields, but the more I looked at programs the more I realized how different they were - different course focuses, different research, etc.  Taking time off not only allowed me to really educate myself about my options, but enabled me to make the right choice for me, which really is the most important thing.  

8. You'll have more time to research the right grad program. I don't know about you all, but one of the scariest things for me about going to graduate school was to make sure I chose the right one. There were so many things to consider - cost of living, stipend, research, degree, field, caliber, location (are you a city or small town kind of person??) etc. I spent vasting too much time on phds.org, and other such website. (My fave was looking at the usnews report top programs).  And when you've taken time off from school, you have the time to do this. Choosing the right program is huge, and during your time off you have the time to really dig deep and explore all your options - even the ones you haven't heard of!

9. You'll have more time to prepare your applications.   One thing I kept telling myself while I was working on my applications was - "how in the world do people find time to do this when they're in school?" Seriously, those of you that did are super human in my eyes.  I slaved over my applications. I spent every waking minute on them from the moment they opened until the moment they were due. I wrote draft after draft of my personal statements, sent them to peers and former professors for edits, sought resume advice, etc. It was such a task preparing those applications.  Maybe it was because I'm a perfectionist (okay, so that's definitely the reason), but I could never have imagined doing that, especially during Fall of my senior year of undergrad, which was one of the busiest times of my life!  

10. You'll figure out if graduate school is really what you want.  For me, this is the biggest, most important reason.If you're one of those people who is scared that if you take time off you won't get up the nerve to go back to school, then this is what I have to say to you: If you don't end up going back to school, then you didn't want to go in the first place. In my opinion, this is the most important reason to take time off. If you don't want it, you won't think twice about it. You won't put in all the effort if it's not something you want. Graduate school is not for the wishy-washy people, the unsure.  You have to own it, love it, and know that you're going to suffer through it before you come out on top. I may only be a few months in, but I've known enough graduate students to know that you have to want to be there, or else it will chew you up and spit you back out with no degree to show for the effort you did put in.  Like I said above, my dad was very nervous about the time that I intended to take off after graduation.  What I said to him should be the same thing you tell yourself - "I want this too much to never come back." If you're not telling yourself that, then you have your answer.  Maybe graduate school isn't for you.

Well, I hope that helped! I truly believe that taking time off after I graduated was one of the best decisions I ever made. It isn't for everyone, but I hope that the reasons I gave above help you determine if it's the right move for you.

Until next time,

http://www.thecampuscompanion.com/2012/11/08/7-reasons-why-you-should-take-a-gap-year-before-grad-school/#.UieSRLu9KSM

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