What should I do during my "gap year"?

[can can]

Hey so I had to take a leave from school because of a medical condition. I'm a freshman, I only finished my first semester of college and I'm coming back spring of next year. My plan is to volunteer in a research lab and work some kind of job part-time to support myself during this time. I was wondering what jobs would be a good idea to apply to to help my medical school application. I am somewhat lost what I should do during this time, to be quite honest. One thing I'm considering is taking a clinical medical assistant class over the summer and seeing if i could be employed in that sometime later during my gap year and during the school year. Any advice?

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[Skydive Fox]

A bit confused, but if your condition is so serious that you'll have to leave school for a whole year, will you realistically be able to volunteer/work?

That said, you're just a semester into your college career, so any work or volunteer experience would help build your resume. Anything like a clinical assistant or scribe would be great.

I took a medical leave for a semester after some major trauma injuries, and I continued volunteering at an organization I was an officer for towards the end of my leave, but only because it was fun for me and let me spend time with my friends. I'm not sure what situation you're in, but my honest advice to anyone on a medical leave would be to focus on your recovery and health. Everything else can and should be put on hold until you're feeling better.

 

[RhinB]

I think first off you should realize you have a lot of time to decide what you want to do in your gap year and that your life 4 years from now will be dramatically different than from what it is now.

I would focus on the next year or two ahead of you and get good grades, etc.

With that out of the way, I always suggest doing something you're actually interested in. The typical things people do are:

• Research (clinical, translational, bench/basic science)
• Medical Scribe work
• TFA/some form of working with disadvantaged groups

There's nothing that you "should" do but when you reach your senior year, look at your application and see what areas you might be deficient in and fill those gaps. If you're not deficient anywhere then just pick what you want to do and just make sure it's a productive use of your time. Again, I can't emphasize more that who you are now will change dramatically and what you want to do will change as well so just keep that in mind.


***EDIT: Wow completely read the OP question incorrectly. Thanks for the correction. Ignore all the above and focus on health and try to do some research/lab work, volunteer, and shadowing. These will probably the least strenuous and easiest to do short-term.

 

[Skydive Fox]

I think first off you should realize you have a lot of time to decide what you want to do in your gap year and that your life 4 years from now will be dramatically different than from what it is now.

I would focus on the next year or two ahead of you and get good grades, etc.

With that out of the way, I always suggest doing something you're actually interested in. The typical things people do are:

• Research (clinical, translational, bench/basic science)
• Medical Scribe work
• TFA/some form of working with disadvantaged groups

There's nothing that you "should" do but when you reach your senior year, look at your application and see what areas you might be deficient in and fill those gaps. If you're not deficient anywhere then just pick what you want to do and just make sure it's a productive use of your time. Again, I can't emphasize more that who you are now will change dramatically and what you want to do will change as well so just keep that in mind.

I think you misread OP's question. He's talking about the "Gap Year" between his Freshman/Sophomore year since he has to take a leave of absence from school for one year, not the typical "Gap Year" as in between undergrad/med school. I think he's just looking for ideas to keep him occupied during this medical leave.

 

[ifnotnowwren]

Skydive Fox gave some good ideas. I would recommend seeing if you can find physicians to shadow. Shadowing can be difficult to do during the school year because many physicians work weekdays, and you will be in classes on weekdays. You can rack up shadowing hours even if you just have one shadowing day a week, and depending on your situation, it wouldn't be as demanding as a job, which may be helpful if you are needing time to rest and recuperate.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

It's far more important for you to get your health issues resolved and come back strong and healthy next year than do ANY activities during your year off.

 

[RhinB]

I think you misread OP's question. He's talking about the "Gap Year" between his Freshman/Sophomore year since he has to take a leave of absence from school for one year, not the typical "Gap Year" as in between undergrad/med school. I think he's just looking for ideas to keep him occupied during this medical leave.

Wow you're completely right. My bad. I changed some of my suggestions but it's nothing different than from what everyone else has said in response to OP

 

[Goro]

OP, at this point in time, ANY job is good. Stop worrying about what looks good to Adcoms and think about what YOU want to do.

 

[can can]

It's far more important for you to get your health issues resolved and come back strong and healthy next year than do ANY activities during your year off.

A bit confused, but if your condition is so serious that you'll have to leave school for a whole year, will you realistically be able to volunteer/work?

So I was actually forced to take a year off because I had a psychotic episode that landed me in the mental hospital. The thing is, I'm fine now, and just looking for things to occupy my time. :/

I guess I don't want to do something solely to impress adcoms persay, it's just that I've been feeling pretty guilty about this whole leave thing and I want to do something that makes me feel productive and I guess something that'd also help out my resume would be nice. That, and I kind of want just any suggestions for medical-related activities since that's what I'm interested in.

Thank you guys for the advice.

 

[mistafab]

So I was actually forced to take a year off because I had a psychotic episode that landed me in the mental hospital. The thing is, I'm fine now, and just looking for things to occupy my time. :/

I guess I don't want to do something solely to impress adcoms persay, it's just that I've been feeling pretty guilty about this whole leave thing and I want to do something that makes me feel productive and I guess something that'd also help out my resume would be nice. That, and I kind of want just any suggestions for medical-related activities since that's what I'm interested in.

Thank you guys for the advice.

Hey OP, I do hope you the best of luck in this gap year. I know you can come back to school and do great! This time off will be a nice time to focus on your healing and put everything into perspective.

I'd suggest taking a job in a lab, a hospital, or anything science/research/health related. Your idea on doing a "clinical/medical assistant" class sounds like a cool way to get an idea about the field. Even if you later decide medicine is not for you, you would really appreciate having spent time doing something in the field and just working for 8-10 months and working on yourself. If you do eventually decide you want to apply for medical school, I can see this whole year off as a good experience to talk about with ADCOMS (though I would not mention the psychotic break unless you really want to). You could talk about how you had never had the chance to live in the "real world" and how it really gaveyou a lot of perspective on what you wanted to do.

Any way, best of luck. I know you can do it!