Gap year experiences that are not research?

[glassesvar]

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Hey guys I’m looking for gap year experiences that aren’t centered around research. I’m kind of burnt out, so I want something that will be chill and where I will be able to meet people and have a good time. Any recommendations?

 

[965978]

Hey guys I’m looking for gap year experiences that aren’t centered around research. I’m kind of burnt out, so I want something that will be chill and where I will be able to meet people and have a good time. Any recommendations?

I’ve gotten an extreme variety of opinions from a lot of ADCOMS on here regarding whether or not you have to have a clinical or research job during the gap year. Some say you absolutely have to, and others say it doesn’t matter at all.

A lot of the clinical jobs (especially CNA and scribing) can be quite stressful. If burning out is a concern, you can just take two gap years or you can take a month to cool down after graduation and then get a job and apply.

 

[glassesvar]

I’ve gotten an extreme variety of opinions from a lot of ADCOMS on here regarding whether or not you have to have a clinical or research job during the gap year. Some say you absolutely have to, and others say it doesn’t matter at all.

A lot of the clinical jobs (especially CNA and scribing) can be quite stressful. If burning out is a concern, you can just take two gap years or you can take a month to cool down after graduation and then get a job and apply.

Really? That honestly seems extremely unreasonable to demand that an applicant spend the 1 year they have off from school doing something clinical when they spent the past 4 years working their ass off doing clinical work and ECs for med school, and plan on working their ass off for the next 7+ years devoting their life to medicine. Can’t people get a break? And then they wonder why doctors burn out.

 

[965978]

Really? That honestly seems extremely unreasonable to demand that an applicant spend the 1 year they have off from school doing something clinical when they spent the past 4 years working their ass off doing clinical work and ECs for med school, and plan on working their ass off for the next 7+ years devoting their life to medicine. Can’t people get a break? And then they wonder why doctors burn out.

1) Let’s keep our behavior on here professional.

2) I sympathize with you. But different people have different opinions. Some ADCOMS might think that it shows dedication and initiative to have clinical employment. Other ADCOMS value students who have achievements in non-medical and non-scientific fields and believe that the skills will transfer over, and are happy with just clinical volunteering.

 

[glassesvar]

1) Let’s keep our behavior on here professional.

2) I sympathize with you. But different people have different opinions. Some ADCOMS might think that it shows dedication and initiative to have clinical employment. Other ADCOMS value students who have achievements in non-medical and non-scientific fields and believe that the skills will transfer over, and are happy with just clinical volunteering.

Any medical school that demands that I have clinical experience during my gap year isn’t one that I want to go to anyway. I already have lots of hours of clinical experience and am not going to do more just to please an Adcom. Also 2 of my friends that just matriculated to top 5 schools, and another that matriculated to a top 10, all didn’t even do anything during their gap year besides travel and party, so it seems like if such selective schools don’t care then a lot of other ones probably wouldn’t either. Do you mind sharing which schools the adcoms who expressed these views were from?

 

[ThrowawayShmoaway]

You’re coming off as super petulant right now, when somebody is just trying answer the question you posed. Your gap year activities don’t necessarily need to be research-related, but you should hopefully shoot for something that adds to your application, whether it’s something clinical if you’re lacking that, or maybe some non-clinical service activity, if you’re lacking that, etc. Overall, you should be able to glean some experiences/lessons from whatever you choose that 1) you hopefully enjoy, at least a little bit, and 2) could potentially be written about in your primary/secondaries and discussed at interviews.

 

[jurisburger]

I worked part-time in a few restaurants and also did some volunteer tutoring work with a local shelter. Bartending seems to meet your requirement of meeting people/having fun while still getting paid. I can't imagine any adcoms will hold it against you for not doing something clinical during your year off so long as you can demonstrate that facet well in other areas of your app. Obviously don't JUST party the entire year away. Working a job to save money for application year+med school is certainly not frowned upon for instance.