It’s May 2020 and the “Register for the Fall 2020 Semester!” emails keep on coming. I cannot think of a single thing I’d like to do LESS than signing up for another semester of pandemic ridden classes. Learning through a screen for me, holds no accountability. I don’t have to show up and look the teacher in the face if I hadn’t completed an assignment on time. Oh, my essay is due tomorrow? If I delete the reminder email, is the essay really still due tomorrow?
My main motivation for finishing school? The UMBC sweatshirts we purchased my grandparents after I had made my college decision. If I wasn’t to complete school, what would happen to those sweatshirts? I can’t imagine the disappoint that those sweatshirts would bring as a reminder to my failure. I can imagine my grandfathers face, because I’ve seen it before. The very face he made when he saw the giant crack in the wall in the living room my sister accidentally made with our family’s mini-van. Just shock and disappointment. So August rolls around, I guess I have to sign up for classes.
November comes, and I have completed almost nothing. My Blackboard app has offloaded on my phone, I haven’t attended a Blackboard Collaborate session in weeks, and with failing grades in all classes, I am forced to withdraw from all of my classes to avoid utterly failing out of school. I come to the realization that I quite literally cannot learn this way. At this point the pandemic is in full tilt, and there is no hope for a semi-normal spring semester either. I guess I’m taking a gap year.
The thing about a gap year amidst a pandemic, is the extreme lack of fun. Before, the words gap year trigger thoughts of travel or freedom. A year to do whatever you want, without the confines of school! But as a person set on not set on contracting a deadly virus, my year was spent either working at my childhood indoor pool as a lifeguard/ pool manager, or in my room reading the latest “This has been the deadliest week since last week!” COVID press release.
So here I am back at school, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I am keeping up with assignments better than I have in recent years which is good, but I can’t help but feel shame. When people ask me what year I am, I don’t even know what to say. My typical answer, with a wide smile, is something along the lines of “Well age wise I’m a Junior, but credit wise a sophomore,” and I add a chuckle at the end to emphasize just how okay I am with being behind the typical four year schedule. It’s a real motive killer. But then I think back to my grandparents’ sweatshirts, and how proud they were when they received them. So I head to the library, and keep pushing.
Unruly Bodies 
I think that it is incredibly important to push forward with your goals but still know your boundaries. It will be so rewarding to look back and think, “I gave myself time, and Im still Okay”. I too get caught in fear or shame of not graduating on time, but in the end, we all need to do what is best for our mindset, and think less about the expectation of others!
I related so hard to this post. The lack of accountability was probably that hardest part for virtual learning for me; without it, I lacked motivation to do basically everything. Now I didn’t end up going through with withdrawing from my classes, but I retrospectively I feel like I should have because I retained nothing, and that was easily my worst performance in college. I understand why you might feel shame surrounding your gap year, but I see your decision as brave and knowing yourself, and something that a lot of other students (like me) considered, but for one reason or another didn’t go through with. Also, as a side note, I love your thing with your grandparents’ sweatshirts because after my mom bought merch from the bookstore she said that I’d better graduate from this school and not waste her $40.
This was something I related to real heavily, especially because of the fact that we had been fully online during the pandemic. I didn’t do it like you though, I signed up for a full schedule a week or two before both Fall 2020, Spring 2021 and even this semester. I forced myself to work through the assignments, but I only ever managed to complete the large assignments due to the sense of my parents always antagonizing me over my education. A gap year during the pandemic would have been something that I needed, but since I still live with my parents, would have been an impossible decision to make. If I was able to do it like you, I would have tried to work more and save money up to move out if I had a year to do so, then maybe head back to school when I feel prepared to, not pushed into it by guilt by my parents.
I definitely understand where you are coming from. For a lot of us, part of the reason we are in college is to please loved ones. When you think about how college is in some ways a scam and a waste of time, it makes you feel like you shouldn’t be there. Because of what my parents and other adults preached ti me, I never felt like not going to college was an option, But who knows, maybe if I really sat and thought about whether or not i wanted to to go to college, I maybe, might have found an alternative that would’ve assured me a comfortable and financially stable life without having to go to school for an extra four years.
I totally understand what you meant. As a someone who’s supposed senior year passes during the pandemic, I took a gap year as well to make sure my last semester would be on campus. Those sweatshirts are really cute though :3 I’m glad you’re back though ❤
The courage to be an advocate for yourself and take a gap year when you needed it is admirable. It takes strength to stand up for yourself sometimes, especially when it goes against social norms. People complete their education at all different lengths of time at all different ages. I hope your transition back to school has been going smoothly.