Taking a Gap Year Before Grad School - Myths.

This post is about gap years between academia.

Between my undergraduate and masters degrees, I worked as a process design engineer for two years, designing oil refineries at UOP-Honeywell. Between my masters and PhD, I spent a year leading high-altitude treks in the Himalayas.

In India there is this idea that you should complete your studies in one stretch. Mixing employment and grad school is viewed with slight disapproval. Taking a personal gap year, where you’re far removed from your profession and academics, raises a lot of eyebrows and is generally regarded as a bad move. Thankfully, things are changing.

As someone who has bounced around before settling into a PhD program, I got to hear a range of comments. Here are some arguments people made for not taking a gap year, and my responses to them.

“You will lose a year or two”

Is it ‘losing’ a year when you’re gaining skills, enjoying yourself and ensuring that you remain in great mental health? In fact the tangible benefits of a gap year deserve a dedicated blog post for themselves (coming up soon!).

“You will lose your connection with your undergrad courses”

During my MS, I encountered biology-intensive coursework for the first time after high-school. In the first semester of my PhD, I took grad-level math, thermodynamics and chemical kinetics courses after a gap of 6-7 years. I passed. And it was not just me - other students went for longer stints in the industry, came back to grad school, and did well. There is no ‘connection’ that you need to maintain.

“Once you start making money in the industry, you will not want to be a student again”

If you like your financial comfort and you decide it matters enough to you to avoid graduate school, well that’s excellent! You’ve assessed your priorities and made an informed choice. You might make the opposite choice too - you might realize that you want to do research, or that career advancement in your field requires an advanced degree, and come back to grad school.

“How will you explain a gap year on your CV?”

This often comes up in conversations with the previous generation. Explain a gap year? To whom? Universities? Firms? No one cares, really. Proof - I managed to get into a PhD program fresh after my stint in the Himalayas.

In India, there used to be a chance of firms raising an eyebrow, but things are changing rapidly. A former trek-leader colleague of mine is applying to business schools (and he stands to get into a good one). As an example of how firms and institutes are increasingly accepting of such stuff, take a look at the Indian Institutes of Managements’ IIM Mountain Challenge.

“Your brain slows down, acquiring new information is harder with age”

Bollocks.