Head space | Aaron Keohane

Aaron Keohane discusses the benefits of a year out

     When I was in my final year back in 2008 I became decidedly less interesting. I was feeling the strain of my 20 credit final year project (FYP) for Applied Psychology, and the scope of my world had narrowed considerably until it consisted of the topic of the next essay that was due next, my FYP, Subway, Lennoxes, the shenanagins at Freakscene that week, and one other issue that loomed large – the question of what the hell I was going to do next year.I’m one of those ‘save the world types’ so I had had it in my head for a good while to graduate and then work for some non-profit in India, but now I wasn’t so sure. When I mentioned this plan to people the usual response was ‘really?’ followed by tonnes of questions, but the matter was far from settled in my mind. I veered from Masters, to relevant work experience, to India and then one day a wise friend of mine gave me a wonderful piece of advice. She said ‘stop asking yourself ‘what should I do?’ and ask yourself ‘what would I like to do?’And after taking an evening to stop and really think about that question, and be truly honest with myself, the answer became obvious. It turned out that what I really like to do was to take a year out to ‘just live’. To not leave all my friends behind on a trip to India, to not have academic anxiety hanging over me for another year while studying for a Masters or to not feel under pressure to make sure I get everything I could out of relevant work experience. As hippie-ish as it sounded, simply being for a while, taking a year out from the career ladder seemed like the most blissful idea ever. And the more I thought about it the surer I became that this was the right decision for me.But now we come to the real subject of this article. I noticed that when I mentioned my new found revelation to people I tended to get a less than enthusiastic reaction. So being the social scientist that I am, I conducted a little experiment. To some people I said I was doing a Masters, to others I told I was taking the year off and to others I said that I had some relevant work experience lined up. Then I monitored people’s reaction to each. To the Masters option, the typical response was ‘oh that’s interesting, where are you going to do that? What will you be studying? How will you afford it? etc. etc.’ The relevant work experience received a similarly animated reaction.However, when I mentioned the year off option, people’s reaction could not have been more different. On one or two occasions all I got was a solitary ‘oh’ spoken in a way that I imagine would resemble their reaction to the information that someone dear to them had just passed away. This I could only surmise was due to the fact that qualifications and ones career path take on a particular importance in the academic bubble and career rat race that is UCC. I can very easily imagine that a lot of students find themselves swimming with the current of popular opinion and simply doing Masters for the sake of progressing their career and not because they are particularly sure of their choice.Half way through my wonderful year off I couldn’t believe that I had even considered any other option. The decision to take a year out turned out to be without doubt the best decision I have ever made. Outside the academic sphere, I had what I term the ‘head space’ to think, to really think. After a few months occupying this new head space, the answers to a lot of my questions came to me rather than the other way round. These answers arrived in the form of topics which I found myself genuinely interested in and reading about despite the fact that they were not the subject of an essay due at the end of the week. What these interests were is not of any import but what is significant is the fact that I would never have found out what I was genuinely interested in unless I had taken a year to just be. I am now studying a subject that I love and working at a career I am passionate about. All of which have were only made possible due to the insights I gained into myself which I discovered during my year off. In a nutshell dear reader, I would strongly suggest that every student considers a year out as a viable option in their career ladder.