my gap year of nothing and everything by Kanokwan T. '25

The idea of taking a gap year, like to most, initially terrified me. Instead of spending time in school, I’d have to find other things to do. There were no class schedules or club meetings to provide some substance to my schedule but, instead, days that were fully my own. Before making my decision, I spent a lot of time sitting and thinking. There’s much to unpack with a gap year, so I’ve broken it up into 2 parts. Three years ago, while in the early months of it, I kept being asked why I was taking one, so I wrote a blog about it. You can read that here. I just reread it and felt bouts of cringe, but it’s fine. They say cringing at your past self shows growth or whatever. This blog you’re currently reading won’t be about why I took a gap year but, instead, what I did on it. 

FYI: I gapped during the COVID-19 year (June 2020 – August 2021), so my plans had to adjust accordingly. I decided to spend roughly the first half of my gap working to remotely build up funds and gain work experience whereas the second half would be more for having fun.

small personal blogs

Throughout the months, I actually wrote short monthly blogs that have still never seen the light of day, even to my closest friends. Those were just for me to read. I found it was a good way to check in with myself, especially during a year of such autonomy. I’ll share a little bit with you—below is the index:

I have always found it difficult to succinctly capture my gap year. I usually warn people that it may take a hot minute before I go into it. In short, I worked for a STEM nonprofit and the Biden Data Team, visited my family in Thailand and friends in New York, and went on a meditation retreat. There are certainly ways I can say it in just one sentence, like I did just now, but I feel it still doesn’t do justice to how profound and enriched that time in life was. 

A year after my gap concluded, I finally brought myself to make a video of it. For context, I made this video mostly for my friends and family, long before I decided to even apply to become a blogger. It’s a short few minutes that bursts through the things I did, but I think still does an adequate job of capturing what had been. 

So, here’s what happened…

1. Nothing

I made a lot of plans to justify myself taking a gap. I made lists of all the things that came to mind when posed with the question of what I would do. One piece of media couldn’t seem to adequately catch all of my ideas, so I made a document, sheet, and slidedeck. It was fun letting my mind run free with the possibilities of it all. I thought of programs, internships, activities, trips, and so much more.

But, nothing felt right. I was scared and overwhelmed. I didn’t want to do anything. Or, rather, I knew I wanted to eventually do things but I wasn’t quite yet in the right mind space to take this daunting year on. Also, thinking of my life as a whole, I found there were few other times where taking a full break would feel totally okay. As in, while in the motions of school, work, and whatever else, while certainly doable, it would be hard to eject and truly do nothing. 

So, I scraped all of it. I cleared all of my plans. 

There was also a charm in learning about the nature of my gut feeling. I was curious about my impulse. This would be a fun experiment of sorts: with zero obligations, what would I do? When I woke up every morning, I could think about whatever I wanted to do that day and just do it. Do you ever have moments where you think “I would do this thing…if I had time”? I know I have a lot. Suddenly, I no longer had that excuse. I did have time. At the same time, I also didn’t want to pressure myself to do things, but instead only have the possibility of doing so. High school tired me out. If this month was purely just me taking a break and lounging around, that would’ve been perfectly fine. The key thing is I would just do whatever felt right that day. 

I gave myself a month. I rescheduled every meeting I had, which effectively cleared my entire calendar. I even turned off the “Holidays” calendar so I would see a completely blank slate. Google Calendar was stark to look at, just a grid of blank white squares. It was all-together nerve wracking yet overwhelmingly calming.

I found myself reading, writing, painting, and learning guitar. It was a restorative time.

2. Zion Roadtrip

My middle school friends (Andrew C. ’24, Ailun S. ’25, and Amanda C. ’26) and I decided to embark on a road trip. I had never been on one, so I was particularly excited about this one. We chose Zion due to its proximity.

I don’t know how we did this, but we took some weird turns and ended up in the parking lot without a parking pass. Upon looking around, we saw that every car had a bright red slip hung on its mirror except us. It was no longer being sold online and offices seemed closed, so what were we to do? Luckily, Amanda noticed that she brought a red subject notebook, so she cut a section of it out and Andrew copied the typography of the official pass down. We hooked it to the car mirror and went on with our days. We did not get fined. Sometimes, I still feel bad about that because we should’ve paid, and would’ve, but alas. I am not endorsing forgery, however, I do endorse creative, mostly-harmless solutions. 

For the first half of our trip, we decided to try “real” camping in a tent on the floor of the great outdoors. That was not a great idea. The concept of it was alright, but we chose a bad time. It was so incredibly hot that none of us really fell asleep. I remember sitting up to meditate because I couldn’t get myself to knock out, which apparently spooked one of my trip mates. As for the second half of our trip, we stayed in an Airbnb. Phew.

We hiked the Emerald Pools, Angel’s Landing, and the Narrows. The pools were, well, emerald—pretty to look at but deeply appalling to jump into. We climbed a big slimy rock there. Ascending towards the landing was notoriously steep as hell, indeed a step away from the heavens. And, my god, the Narrows took us completely out. For context, this hike has you walking in water against the current of the Virgin River. We had to rent river shoes and water sticks to get ourselves through. Sometimes, the water would barely be over our toes, other times it’d be well over our heads. The rocks were slippery, uneven, though, ultimately really fun to navigate. We were so exhausted from this hike that we cancelled the remainder of our trip and went home early because we simply could not move anymore. It was kinda satisfying having pushed our physical limits.⁠01 though, i basically tossed out my hip by the end of this. it felt.. crunchy... don’t worry, it did eventually recover within a few days and i have felt fine ever since</span><span style="font-weight: 400">

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3. Tutoring

I knew I wanted to spend the early half of my gap year working. I brainstormed ways I could earn money remotely that seemed fulfilling. Tutoring quickly became the obvious choice. I was qualified, I could do it from anywhere, and it could be fun. I signed up for a couple online tutoring sites and, after a few weeks of experimenting, narrowed down to the most fruitful sources. Because I worked for several tutoring companies in addition to my own freelance service, I centralized all of my students in one Notion database. Over the course of one year, I tutored 34 students in 586 sessions, totaling 652.75 hours. I taught a student from every grade level K-12, college students, and even working adults looking to pass vocational exams. It was kinda a mental trip when I had back-to-back sessions of people studying totally different things, like switching my brain from teaching addition tables to constitutional law violations. I surprisingly found teaching the simpler concepts more difficult because they were already so innate to me; it took more effort for me to put myself in the shoes of the student. 

This whole tutoring experience, in some way, also felt like an experiment. The constant variable was the activity of teaching and the changing variable was who was being taught. What stayed the same about my teaching style? What did I shift to match the student? How can I tell if someone understood me?

I think this teaching experience also made me a better student. Content-wise, I felt I reinforced my existing foundation for topics I had taught, mostly with math and government. I could better understand the transfer of knowledge, both from the teacher and student lens. I tutored a ton in the early months, some in the later months, and then fully suspended my practice before entering university. I wanted to focus on my studies while in school, though I do miss my students every now and then.

4. Biden Organizing Fellowship + Data Team

Part of the reason why I took a gap year was to help my home state of Nevada in the 2020 Presidential election. This wasn’t a primary reason, but certainly one of them. Historically, my home has been a battleground state because we have a diverse political landscape and swing between different parties. I applied to two jobs: (1) organizing volunteers and (2) analyzing election data. I got the organizing job, which involved making around 800 cold calls and subsequently recruiting volunteers to knock doors. 

i staffed an event where Biden spoke!

Nevada came down to a marginal win, which means that we likely would not have won the state had we not actively campaigned, so I was pretty proud of my work there. There were no set hours: just work as long as you can. It was an intense two months. I felt the urgency and weight of the election.

A few weeks later, by complete surprise, I was promoted to the data team. I remember reading the data job description and thinking “wow, I only meet 1 or maybe 2 of these requirements, but I’ll apply anyways and see what happens. Worst case is they say no.” On the campaign, I was the youngest of this ~100-person team, which terrified me. Because our team had access to sensitive information, there was also big responsibility that came with the role. I had to go through a long security briefing to reset all of my main passwords, set up a NFC Security Key, and learn about data safety protocols. At the very least, there was an MIT alumni working on similar projects as I, so that brought me some comfort. 

I didn’t realize the data team did so much until I joined. Here are some things we did:

1. Crunched numbers to inform campaign decisions
2. Programmed analytics dashboards using SQL in a Google Cloud data warehouse
3. Created auto-updating Google sheets to synthesize vote tracking data
4. Wrote Python scripts to import election data into our ballot data pipelines
5. Collected spoiled ballot data for volunteers to cure (correcting things like missing signatures, out-of-date addresses, that sort of thing)
6. Computer-generated ~200 “precinct turf maps” for a 1000+ canvasser program where peopled knocked doors and activated voters in Nevada’s critical precincts
7. Built and maintained relationships with county election clerks to gather voter data from their respective offices

some love for the data team in our victory call <3

It was a wild ride. Fun fact: for building campaign morale, celebrities occasionally joined our team calls. Cher hopped onto one of our weekly catch-ups in late October. Mark Hamill (you know, Luke Skywalker) joined our final call. What a strange time it was. 

i still can't believe this happened

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5. STEM nonprofit

I was curious about the STEM nonprofit space, so I applied to intern at STEMchats. We curated programs and hosted events to break down barriers in STEM for historically-underrepresented high school students. I was a member of the business development team and helped establish partnerships with other organizations. I liked the experience of working with people across different time zones, all looking to do something meaningful while at home during the pandemic. This experience also helped anchor my schedule. I had regularly-occurring meetings and people I would consistently see, which helped me find some sense of stability in the midst of a barren schedule.

Acting as the primary liaison for several key connections, I was later promoted to Vice President of External Development to further develop these relationships. I liked seeing our events come together and reach people. Also, I found out there were other MIT people on the team, which made the experience feel more home-y. When my gap year concluded and I finally got to campus, I actually bumped into quite a few of those friends I made while on the team! Our initial conversations went something like “are you… [insert name]… from STEMchats?” And, with a laugh, we would hit it right off. 

6. Thailand

By 2021, I hadn’t been to Thailand in around a decade. Growing up in the states as a first-generation student meant an interesting relationship with culture. My parents maintained traditional Thai traditions in the house, yet we all had to figure out American norms together. I felt disconnected from my Thai roots. I had so many questions and so few answers.

My mother and I were fortunate to be able to fly back to our home country, where the COVID-19 situation was being handled much better than in the states. We took a +24 hour flight, completed a 2-week hotel quarantine, and set about exploring our country.

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I…felt a warmth in my soul that I never quite felt before? I won’t go into details, at least for now, but I think some context would be important. Growing up, my family life felt pretty non-ideal. As a low-income household, there was an overarching cloud of stress and tension amongst us. I also didn’t have a great relationship with either of my parents, though I was fortunate to have them both in my life. We faced tough times together, and there was a clear rift. I felt like I never understood them. I asked for stories and my dad would tell some but my mother told me none. I was honestly super surprised that she wanted to take me to Thailand—I thought she disliked being around me.

But, during my gap year, something radically shifted in my family. Perhaps it was the realization that I was headed off for college and going to be on my own. Perhaps it was the pandemic forcing us to actually spend time together. I can’t pinpoint one particular cause. But, what I do know is some combination of factors lead to a breakthrough that previously seemed impossible to me. The cold, emotional wall that my mother built around herself seemed to chip away, and I could see her light shine through. While back home in Thailand, she seemed to glow. 

We spent the first 1.5 months meeting up with relatives, cruising through nature, and indulging in the food. At the halfway point of my 3-month trip, my mother went back home to work. I spent the remaining 1.5 months on my own bouncing between different branches of our family. I proactively tried to understand my background: I read history articles, watched Thai culture videos, did 23andMe, built our first family tree, re-learned how to write my name in Thai, and inquired with family. I learned a lot.

I had never felt more cozy and safe, like some part of my inner child had been healed.

7. Vipassanā Silent Meditation Retreat

From the very beginning of the gap year, I knew I wanted to do a meditation retreat.⁠02 clarification: my family is Buddhist, but I am not (I think agnostic is the most accurate descriptor), though anyone of any belief can participate in a meditation retreat These retreats strip you of the external world, leaving you with just your thoughts. Basically, you sit alone in silence for many hours a day and just think. I wondered: independent of stimuli, where would my mind take me?

Originally, I planned to do a meditation program while in Thailand, but the logistics didn’t work out. So, when I arrived back home in Las Vegas, I consulted with my local monastery and was luckily able to attend their 10-day silent meditation retreat. 

I remember arriving on Day 1 and being surrounded by people much older than myself, so much so that several people asked if my parents had forced me to be there. It was actually quite the opposite, actually. My parents asked if I was sure about doing it, because they knew how intense it could be. In true monastic style, I arrived with basic toiletries, robes, and that was basically it. We had the same schedule every day, which included around 7 hours of meditation:

• 3:30 am — 4:00 am: wake up + get ready
• 4:00 am — 5:30 am: meditate (chant)
• 5:30 am — 6:00 am: personal time
• 6:00 am — 7:00 am: breakfast
• 7:00 am — 8:00 am: personal time
• 8:00 am — 9:00 am: meditate (walk)
• 9:00 am — 10:00 am: meditate (silent)
• 10:00 am — 11:00 am: personal time
• 11:00 am — 12:00 pm: lunch
• 12:00 pm — 2:00 pm: personal time
• 2:00 pm — 3:00 pm: meditate (silent)
• 3:00 pm — 5:00 pm: personal time
• 5:00 pm — 7:00 pm: meditate (chant)
• 7:00 pm — 7:30 pm: personal time
• 7:30 pm — 3:30 am: sleep

It was hard. Really, really hard. Naturally, the first few days were the toughest on me. I’d never sat still for so long. What’s the longest you’ve gone without using your phone? For me, it was these 10 days. I got intensely bored at times, and I normally rarely ever get bored. There were thoughts I didn’t want to sit with, but that’s all I could do, which I guess was the point. I figured that the thoughts I avoided most were the most I should actually confront most. My mind often drifted, which is very natural and expected during meditation. I found it fun noticing patterns in where it would drift: replaying memories, iterating on build project ideas, playing songs, exploring physics, rotating a cow,⁠03 <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/rotating-a-cow-in-mind" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the internet is a wonderful place sometimes</a> daydreaming travels, and so on. 

I could feel the clear partition between the observer and the actor within myself, which is the core goal of Vipassanā meditation. Meaning, I distinguished two voices in my head: one I could control and one I couldn’t. We cannot control our thoughts or feelings, but we can usher them along. 

The retreat felt like a cross between a military boot camp and an island oasis vacation. It was the most mentally grueling experience of my life, though the most serene. I’ve never felt emotions quite like I did then, and working through those feelings has stuck with me ever since. I feel like I was able to clear my mind, gain a deeper understanding of how I thought, and fully reset. 

8. New York

I wanted to capstone my gap year with a fun excursion. I was very happy that my friend Ailun, who was also on a gap year (and the aforementioned Zion trip), decided to come along for the ride. I had never been on a trip purely for fun before, aside from home to Thailand. My family never really went on trips unless we needed to: renewing our passports at an embassy, competing in school competitions, or the like. After working several jobs and building a savings during my gap year, I was excited to embark on this New York adventure. 

It was a packed, whirlwind trip, as my trips tend to be. Put two Type-A’s together and you wind up with an ungodly agenda. Highlights included exploring the MoMA, visiting Staten Island, ferrying past the Statue of Liberty, biking the Brooklyn Bridge, eating at a secret restaurant, and skydiving in Long Island. The week prior, I remember texting Ailun and prying at her to consider the possibility of a dive, to which she eventually said yes. We thought it would be a fitting cherry-on-top to our respective gap years. 

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We actually wrote a personal blog detailing our adventures, which I honestly never thought would make it beyond the audience of our few close friends, but I thought to link it here for fullness. It’s really cute. There are wonderful tidbits in there, especially because Ailun has an incredibly vivid and humorous way of describing things. 

I never thought I’d ever be able to do a trip like that. I was always stuck at home and only dreamt of going somewhere simply for fun, with a friend coming being a stretch. We kept each other on our toes. I think fondly of that trip.

miscellaneous adventures

There is so much that can happen in any year, let alone a gap. Above are the eight big activities and trips I did, and below is a list of some select, smaller adventures.

personal

• Attended a virtual birthday party
• Voted for the first time ever
• Mailed letters to loved ones
• Set up a Spotify premium plan with my friends
• Attended the graduation of one of the students I tutored

art

• Learned 2 songs on the guitar
• Cut my own guitar pick out of a credit card
• Joined 2 book clubs
• Databased all the art I’ve ever seen⁠04 (that I could remember) this was an insane endeavor. I now have a very, very chonky spreadsheet of art.
• Cross stitched a rose
• Read 27 books
• Watched a movie every weekend virtually with a friend
• Made fridge magnets

food

• Perfected my boiled egg recipe⁠05 i experimented with soooooo many recipes and deduced down to a simple and reliable set of steps. here it is: (1) bring salted water to a rolling boil, (2) gently ladle in and boil eggs for 8 minutes, and (3) put eggs immediately in an ice bath.
• Made cold brew at home
• Ate grasshoppers
• Baked apple rose tarts
• Made soy milk from scratch
• Tried many smoothie recipes
• Learned how to cook pakaprow⁠06 hehe <3 <a href="https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/smoke-and-spice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">my beloved dish</a>

technical

• Worked through an Arduino starter kit
• Fixed an old Bulova B8818 Tristan analog clock⁠07 we had <a href="https://www.bulovaclocks.com/en/item/b8818-tristan-i" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a dusty broken one</a> in our garage so i opened it up, played around with the delicate gears for hours, and eventually got it to work.
• Took EdX and Coursera courses
• Coded a Mamma Mia DDR-inspired game in CS50⁠08 harvard’s intro to comp sci class
• Ran my first Python script ever⁠09 after 3 days of failing, mind you

health

• Started weightlifting
• Practiced yoga
• Took care of my doctors’ appointments

sightseeing

• Hiked Red Rock Canyon
• Biked the Las Vegas strip
• Swam with sharks
• Attended a corgi party
• Explored Omega Mart⁠10 absolutely bonkers <a href="https://meowwolf.com/visit/las-vegas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">immersive art exhibit in vegas</a>. it is the one place i take all of my friends when they visit. highly recommend, if you’re ever in town.

when I felt lost

There were a few nights where I’d lay in bed, look at the ceiling, and wonder. The white noise of the room filled the space—deafening yet comforting. A full year to myself could sometimes feel like… a lot. I often turned to songs for comfort⁠11 in my personal Spotify, I had 2 playlists dedicated to my transition from high school to university: one about general feelings on this change named “π/6” because that angle on the unit circle is roughly the direction of the vector that points from my hometown of Las Vegas to the city of Cambridge, where MIT resides lol and another named “secretly im scared” with the tone being more specifically about struggling to desperately hold onto my past rather than move onto the future —so, i combined them and transferred those songs over to the MITAdmissions Spotify and, perhaps, some of these tunes may elicit similar feelings for you:

concluding thoughts

I tried some things I had always wanted to explore and some things I never thought would cross my path. I gained a better sense of what I was capable of and what I wanted to do next. I got to better understand my roots and how that translates to the person I am today. In essence, I learned so much about myself and the world around me. 

Safe to say that it was a lot of fun. :^)