Give Your Heart A Holiday – Gap Year : Yays and Nays (By Khushi Jaffar – AILET Rank 17)

Khushi Jaffar identifies herself as a cautiously optimistic student who cannot tell her left from her right, but is having a lot of fun figuring life out as it comes. A manifestation of two spirit animals (a cranky kitty and Snorlax), she finished her schooling from the City of Joy where her soul shall forever dwell amongst the beautiful sunsets, biblichore and crumbling cemeteries full of stories. Here is a little page out of her very own Encyclopedia Galactica about how to navigate your year off and land safely on planet CLAT.

I remember tenth grade with mixed feelings. It had ended very well with a 10 CGPA and all the long nights of cramming and pressure that mainly ended in depressing monologues over mint choco-chip ice cream had finally paid off. I was looking at three choices in front of me – Science, Commerce and Arts – that were the world’s way of setting limits to an otherwise never-ending stream of knowledge and whatever I would pick would be my life forever. For the first time ever, I, whose biggest problems till then had been sick kittens and melodramatic friendships, had to make such a monumental decision. I played it safe and wrote down Science. My parents, high on the high CGPA, were equally delighted to have a doctor in the family. All of us had failed to factor in the depression, aimlessness and mental anxiety that would inevitably follow in the coming year, governed by plain ambition and no form of planning or passion whatsoever to tackle an entrance and the do-or-die board exams simultaneously. If you are reading this and vigorously nodding along, I am sure you did not either.

I was forced to get on my feet and come to terms with two choices. I could either pursue a career in a field that had never appealed to me professionally or I could think before making the most important decision of my life. I had simple ambitions- I just wanted to be useful. I saw myself as an effective translator between the administration and the common people and establishes a chain of cohesion that people can count on. Law schools matched that ambition perfectly. They were home to evolving communities of bright people who also made time to help other struggling students make it through its portals. The idea that I could be on the receiving end of help from students who took the same leap of faith I did, as well as give back in gratitude to the others who would be in my place the following year, really appealed to me. Hence, I picked CLAT.

CLAT is an incredibly personal exam. It is a game where you collect as many marks as you can by adopting a strategy unique to you. Which is why I believe advice in this regard is redundant, at least from me. What I can do is, at least, try to support those of you who have better than average report cards, lower than average CLAT ranks and billions of college choices from confused entrances that you cannot remotely see yourself opting for.

I took a gap year – the unthinkable academic taboo in our country (fun fact- it is more common than you think. Just nobody talks about it) and for months, I scrambled through websites wondering how to tackle the extra 365-day head start I had over other CLAT 2019 aspirants. Every website mentioned solo trips as the one-stop solution. Quora dissed the possibility of an Indian gap year for JEE and NEET and concrete information on CLAT was either outdated or absent. There were no articles remotely preparing me for what was about to come. I had to improvise to keep myself motivated every step of the way.

My brain was working overtime and all the rapid changes make one feel helpless. You realize the best thing to do is to take a step back, breathe and start over. A new year means a clean slate free of your past failures and unnecessary baggage. Your gap year is a much needed emotional vacation that is completely focused on your personal checkpoints and no one else’s. Once in a while, the heart needs a break from feeling low and broken, when things do not work out. This is meant to be its journey towards healing, strength and improvement.

I hope this article advises you, prepares you, empathizes with you and normalizes the strange emotional transition you are about to go through. Answered below are 5 Frequently Asked Questions:

1. If you are looking for career advice – If you are thoroughly confused and still don’t know whether the path in front of you is the right one, let me kindly pitch in my mother’s genius thought experiment. All you have to do is picture yourself in the centre of a room packed with people having a great time at a party. Tune in and slowly imagine that their conversations are mostly based on their common ground- their career, or potentially yours. If you enjoy these conversations and see yourself wanting to contribute and engage, this career may be the right option for you. However, if you don’t, remember that these are the conversations you will be having for the rest of your life. The little things that you do and say daily, slowly accumulate and soon define your life. They shape your beliefs, they influence your interactions and your decisions. Your career is what will get you like-minded friends and you will rant about your punishing hours and compensation over dinner. If you do not see yourself at peace with the picture in front of you, I suggest you run for your life and crash a party you would rather chill at.
2. If you don’t know if a gap year is a good decision- A gap year essentially is an opportunity for you to fuel your fire and use your extra time to accomplish your goals. However, it is a terrible decision, if you haven’t decided what your goals are in the first place. If you are not convinced about CLAT/AILET and are taking a year off because you have no choice, I suggest you rethink it. Your drive and desire to end up at one of the best colleges in the country is what will keep you working throughout and if that is absent, it is highly probable that you may abandon the thought midway and jump on a different bandwagon, successfully wasting a huge amount of time. Contrary to what it looks like, sitting at home and doing virtually nothing every day is not as easy as it looks, it is probably the hardest academic commitment I have ever had to make. “If not this, then what?” should not be your reason. “CLAT looks easy and I’m crazy good at English (hahaha N O) and I will end up at a college that everyone will envy” should not be your reason. Take a year off because your passion drives you towards it, not because your confusion intimidates you into it.
   You should take a gap year if you are a victim of circumstance, who chose erroneously when picking your subjects for higher studies, who found your true calling but had very little time to bring your efforts to fruition, or if there was a lack of resources/consent/support from your family that you managed to sort out. You should possess ambition, direction and consistency: there should be a crystal clear idea of what you have set out to achieve, you should have the address of your dream college on a Post-It on your wall, confident that the stream is your forte and matches your skill set and vow to yourself that you will be 100% consistent in putting in work to reach to the top.If you are somebody who has unrealistic and limited options like you cannot leave the city and the only college that offers the course of your choice (is it though?) has three seats and you are more focused on how less the available seats are, rather than how you only need one of those three seats, you should rethink this.Another factor that most people ignore in their gap year panic is planning their options in case CLAT doesn’t work out. Please remember this is not a critical comment on your ability. CLAT is a highly unpredictable exam ridden with glitches, a lot of unexplained randomness in the results and the paper itself and also terrible exam centres, in even the best of the cities. You never know what life is going to look like even if you work your hardest from Day 1. Please be prepared that  there is a huge chance this may not work out. It is essential that you have your Plan A, B, C, D, E figured out in case your exam does not go your way.Lastly, make sure your parents are on board with it. I cannot stress the importance of a productive work environment. Support from your parents is extremely important for your peace of mind at home. Muster the courage to frame your first shaky but passionate argument about why you want to pursue the law and deliver it with conviction. After that, sit down and listen to them. They are just as scared and unsure as you. Answer their questions, have a conversation. It will pay off.

3. A gap year it is! How to prep for it, exam-wise?– Divide your entire year into phases. Each phase consists of either 3 or 4 months each (I vote 3). The first phase (June-August) should be focused on setting all your processes. This is when you:a) Stalk your seniors who have made it to law school and ask them for advice. Be shameless and annoying. Their inputs may help you frame a rock-solid strategy that you can follow. Changing your strategy later may work out, it just wastes a lot of time. You’re better off experimenting with possibilities early to see what works for you, prep-wise.b) Invest in a good mentor and a study group that is equally committed and challenges you (also cries with you and does a women’s day out occasionally, with random window shopping and Captain Marvel)c) Buy all your material, figure out your mechanism for GK by experimenting with different notes strategies, different question sets and revision routines to see what is working. Take it from someone who really messed this one up, you cannot leave this for the end. You are missing out on a huge, huge edge. Also fun fact, you can subscribe to GK blogs that will email your daily notes to you. CLATGyan (access our Daily Brief here) was a blessing in this regard since there is a cute little question set at the bottom that really helps the facts stick. Doing random MCQ sets saved my life. It is a smarter approach if you want to cover multiple compendiums.d) Since these are the early months you can afford to do some background reading. It really helped me figure out static GK. Durbar by Tavleen Singh paints all your politicians in a very gossipy light. Their image as socialites making a bumbling faux pas or two makes them more relatable and memorable. Similarly, your CBSE textbooks that you burnt and school guides that introduce international geopolitics build a great base. Only do this if you are an avid reader and that too in the first phase ONLY.Newspapers have been the deciding factor in several editions of CLAT, but I was too lazy and too impatient to read the papers regularly. I opted for a short cut when I saw my mother on the couch having tea in peace with her morning paper. Most parents skim through the papers at lightning speed. My mother finished a year’s worth in two days, cut out important articles and stapled them together like a pamphlet. It saved me a lot of time and boredom.
4. How to prepare for it mentally? – This is the most important segment. People process pressure and failure differently. If you embrace it as a part of the journey, more power to you. If you are one of those (us) who equate your self-worth with your achievements, it can become a toxic exercise and lead to many unhealthy coping mechanisms, the trauma of which will follow you everywhere in life. An average grade sheet or a terrible academic performance is usually followed by some half-baked self-reflection, where we start putting labels on our own capacities. We blame it on our brains – someone else is always sharper, smarter and brimming with more academic talent than we are. When you constantly belittle yourself and find flaws in your ability rather than in your approach, the negativity has an adverse impact on your mental processes. Your capabilities decrease, and this constant under-confidence turns into a mental hindrance that stops you from tackling challenging concepts and struggling with them.Your brain is a little child, who is eager to learn. It is extremely flexible and accommodating. These are the little nuances that you can exploit and make the most of your intellectual capabilities. Not only will they help you study, but they also keep you motivated and more forgiving when you fail. Your priorities shift from being somebody who focuses on how well your competition is doing to somebody who cares solely about what is best for themselves.The two elements that you need to be mindful of to make sure your mental faculties cooperate with you are language (how you speak to yourself) and perspective (how you see yourself). When faced with a situation that does not play out in your favour, indulge your primary impulsive reaction and then immediately proceed to rationalize it. If you fail a test, instead of exclaiming how stupid you are, figure out what went wrong. Maybe your pattern of attempting the test was flawed, maybe your mechanisms for working and retention are not as foolproof as you thought they were. There is never a wrong person, just a wrong way to go about things. Sometimes you can blame your erratic flow for your poor performance, sometimes you can blame your current skill set that needs an upgrade, but never, ever take it out on your mental capacity. Even if it is true, you are the last person who should be convincing yourself of that fact.At the end of every failure that hits you, in the midst of an analysis I would entertain a stray thought that went something like “thanks for trying, you really saved me by helping me remember that obscure detail for Q.19”  or look at a well-phrased line in a long-answer question and go “that sounds so good, I should publish it somewhere”. Exaggerations of this sort and positive reinforcements work the same way compliments do. They may be cheesy and the subject may roll their eyes, but you know they are a burrito of warmth and happiness inside.

   Lastly, listen to your mentors and parents and if required, figure out a schedule for therapy if you feel you have unresolved issues that affect your performance. The first phase is the best time to invest in your mental health and there a lot of all-nighters and nerve-wracking mocks to come. Once in a while, go out for a movie when things get routine and suffocating. I used to chill with an episode of The Office in a sweet little cafe five minutes from my mock centre post the mock. I also recall treating myself to many lunches and taking myself on a solo date to watch Spiderverse at the best theatre in the city. Don’t overdo it, but these things keep you happy and moving. Don’t feel guilty about them.

5. How can I make my year off more productive? People choose to continue with a college on the side and participate in extra-curriculars for rejuvenation. I interned at a cloud-based AI HR firm, earned some money and learnt a lot. They let me communicate and build relationships with their legal clients who had graduated from my dream law schools. Since there is a lot of time, you can also catch up on your reading (brownie points, if it is CLAT-centric). There are websites that offer freelance writing assignments. People pick up a new skill for a break or work with companies like LBB to explore eateries and artsy spaces and write about them in their free time. The world is in your grasp if you have your routine figured out and your goals clear. A caveat here is to never let these miscellaneous projects get in the way of your prep. In the last two phases (Nov- Jan and Feb-May), please focus on CLAT exclusively. Everything else has to be on the sidelines till D-day.

I would like to end this with a huge virtual hug to whoever is reading this with a year off. Your gap year is a testament to your incredible thirst to get what you deserve. It proves that you have the grit and the self-belief to make your dreams come true regardless of how twisted life gets. Be extremely proud of it. Take care of yourself, sleep plenty (A luxury in law school) and go out of your comfort zone once in a while. Solve a puzzle like a brain teaser if you are not fond of them, enjoy GK and all the colourful characters it introduces every month. Do some yoga and cringe when your limbs crack due to your non-existent exercise routine. Break a leg. Just breathe and finish the year with a smile. I am sure you will exceed your expectations and will make it through!

Please leave a comment below in case you have further queries; Khushi will reply to them. In case you are desperately in need of a Personalised Action Plan, please read this.