Why I took a Gap Year before University (and I’m glad I did)

Happy Thursday! Or should I say Thoughtful Thursday?

Haha, this is just a column on my blog where I share things about myself or generally my thoughts on some issues.

Today’s post as you can see, is about why I decided on taking a Gap Year before I went on to University.

Before I begin, I’ll let you know that I graduated University this year! 2018, and I might have graduated last year if I took the leap instead of pausing.

But I’m so glad I didn’t and I’ll share with you why!

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So in the year where I graduated Polytechnic (or high school in some of your terms), I specialised in Human Resource with the Diploma I got.

In that same year, the general flow is that you go on to apply for a University that you like or prefer within a few months of getting your results.

That year was the time of being lost for me. I didn’t know if I wanted to do Human Resource for the rest of my life and go on to get a University degree in Business just because.

As time went by, I didn’t feel the urge to apply for University because I wasn’t in a rush at all and well, was still lost.

Just like that, I missed my chance of being a University student. While you might think, “Don’t you feel like you’re missing out with your friends starting University and you’re just not studying?”.

To be super honest with you, I really didn’t feel much of a gap that year because I actually worked.

The first job I had after graduating with a Diploma, was as a Retail Associate in a pretty popular fast-fashion brand. That few months working in the busy period of the Great Singapore Sales (GSS for short) helped me take off the thoughts of ‘What to do after poly’.

It kept me busy, gave me a little bit of stress, and gave me some extra pocket money! I even learnt a little bit of Malay and brushed up on my Mandarin as I communicated with my colleagues who are from China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines.

I’m pretty much an English speaker my whole life, if you didn’t know.

Mandarin (Chinese) is my mother-tongue but meh, I’m not exceptional in it at all haha.

Of course, I’m rusty in Malay now but those were memories I’d never trade anything for.

And yeah sure, I didn’t really have a fixed shift then as it’s always full shift, morning shift, afternoon shift in random order. Typical retail jobs.

So I kinda lost my social life too. I get so tired once I’m done that all I want to do was watch my dramas or relax.

After the contract ended with them (I was hired for the busy period only), I went back to being lost. Should I find another job or continue wasting my life?

It was about 2 months of wandering, and my brother’s non-stop nagging on finding a job to build my portfolio, that my friend introduced a job to me.

This was a full-time job, your typical 9-5 job, in guess what? A Human Resource Department.

I thought, “Yeah, why not. What an opportune time to figure out if I really want to do Human Resource”.

As I had about 6 months plus to spare before the following year’s intake of University students, I decided to devote that time to working.

I was just an Administrative Assistant in the HR Department but somehow a colleague happened to resign soon and the company needed someone to overtake some of her duties.

Guess who was given the task? Me! No prizes for guessing it right HAHA.

As that job’s minimum requirement was a Diploma, I fit into that and began learning more and handling even more responsibilities.

I was the kind of person where I can be really soft-spoken but once you get to know me, I’m pretty lame and funny (yes, I will say that with my own lips / keyboard).

I learnt a lot from that 6 plus months before leaving but guess what else I left with!

Haha if you read my Overcoming Insecurities post – Part 2)  (Part 1 is here), you’d know the backstory.

DRUM ROLL……

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I left with a relationship! LOL. And we’re still together at the moment.

He’s been my boyfriend of 3.5 years as of writing this post.

Haha, it was so unexpected to get together with him because both of us weren’t looking for any relationship.

But it isn’t a lie that we clicked off pretty well.

I guess like they say, “Love comes when you least expect it”.

I also think that was what made us so natural and true? Since we started out as colleagues, there wasn’t a thought of needing to impress one another.

Before we knew it, we got together.

Fun fact: I thought he could be my first guy best friend before thinking that I actually like him. And he thought I liked him when he confessed, when I was there thinking that he’s a really good friend ????

If you want to know a little more about how we got together though, it’s in the part two post of Overcoming my insecurities linked above. 🙂

And after that, I went on to apply for the University of my choice and began Uni life.

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If you realised by now, this post wasn’t to let you know if you should take a gap year when you are ___ or ___,

I’m just sharing my experiences with anyone who’s floating around like I was before, not knowing what is the right thing to do.

Having been through it, I can definitely say that it won’t be for naught as long as you make good use of the time.

Like me, I took the time to know Human Resource more than the internships I had before my Polytechnic graduation. It was a stepping stone for me, I realised Human Resource isn’t just a desk-bound job. And it was more than that. I thought maybe I could do this after all.

BUT, after graduating University, I had another thought of trying Digital Marketing! I managed to do an internship before graduating University and found out that I do like it.

The reasons why I am not really pursuing it at the moment (I mean finding digital marketing jobs) are because of the experience, portfolio, and this blog.

Digital marketing in a way, you can say that it’s similar to promoting your blog and dealing with social media. If I were to continue on with Digital Marketing, I might not have the passion to continue my blog as they are along the same things.

I didn’t want to get sick and tired of it so quickly especially when one is work, and one is hobby.

I guess after everything, it depends on the individual and what you are interested in.

One advice I’d like to give though is to:

If I wasn’t doing this blog, I might continue trying for Digital Marketing positions.

Things may never go the way you want, but at least you tried 🙂

That’s it for my long storytelling today. I hope it was a good read because I’m actually sharing quite a lot of my life which I hope none of my friends can draw a link to.

(They don’t know I’m blogging! Only my boyfriend knows haha)

Okay, bye! See you next week!

With ????,

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