As deadlines loom and LinkedIn grows louder, Exeter’s final years are asking life’s biggest
question: Should I pursue a fulfilling career, or just disappear to Southeast Asia with a
hammock and a vague sense of purpose? With graduate jobs scarcer than seats in the
Forum during deadline season, a gap year feels like the perfect way to dodge the “What are
you doing after graduation?” interrogation. Why not become your family’s favourite liability,
proudly “funemployed”, spiritually awakened, and living on your parents’ dime? Some students
chase graduate schemes; others chase waterfalls in Costa Rica while insisting it’s
“networking.” After all, why face rejection from the Big 4 when you could get sunburned in St
Tropez and call it resilience?
Of course, the gap year comes with promises of “personal growth” and “cultural enrichment”,
code for spending £6,000 to rediscover yourself at a full moon party. But let’s be honest: the
only thing growing is your overdraft. Will students return from this spiritual sabbatical
job-ready? Unlikely. More probable is a new tattoo, a fear of 9-to-5s, and an elaborate story
about that one time they “almost started a podcast.” Still, in a job market this bleak, who
wouldn’t prefer a year of curated sunsets and cheap beer over unpaid internships and
ghosted applications? So, gap year or gap life? Only time (and LinkedIn) will tell. But for
now, the class of 2025 is off to find themselves, just as soon as they find Wi-Fi. And hey, if
you’re reading this from a beach in Thailand or in Australia, congrats. You’ve already made
it.
