kind of regret not doing this myself, especially during my absolutely cooked COVID semesters during undergrad. now having completed undergrad and grad school, i am more convinced than ever of the truth that as much if not more learning happens outside the classroom, and certainly more personal growth. had i been of this mindset while i was still a student, i probably would have taken a gap semester at some point.
i think if you need it solely as a reprieve from academic burnout, then by all means get some much needed rest, but if you can take a gap semester that would be also personally edifying in another way, absolutely go for it! maybe take on an internship, maybe do some traveling, maybe do some reading on topics you're tangentially interested in but aren't the core focus of your studies, maybe take time and invest in relationships, or pour into your hobbies, grow yourself in ways that make you a more well rounded and fulfilled person. the school to career pipeline exists for convenience and isn't going anywhere. take your time.
Aug 9, 2024
Related Recs
đź—’
I took off an entire year before my first degree after high school and just took language classes for fun, and it was the best thing I could have done to settle into my undergrad degree when I eventually went. The truth is, people who discourage it tend to do so because they think you will need to play catch up but there is actually nothing to catch up to, its just arbitrary standards about what you should do and when. It will never be too late to do and become the things that you want. But when you are burnt out, and need a mental health break, especially when you have avenues to take a break, you should listen to your body and do it.
How you use your gap semester is up to you, whether its getting more sleep or taking some pottery classes for fun, but I found it fulfilling to have a break where I was not just running on a hamster wheel, worrying myself sick about my miles long to do list. And I was the better for it when I went to uni afterwards, I was more focused and I had a better understanding of what I wanted out of my academic career. So yeah, do it, the refresh is more likely to help than it is to harm, just be balanced in how you use it e.g. do some hobbies now that you aren't beholden to the school schedule, don't jam pack your time away and come back tired etc
Aug 12, 2024
🔄
I'm 42 and considering going back to grad school for a career change due to burnout in my current field. Flip that and tell yourself 23 is too young to be stuck in a career you feel apathetic towards. The learning can be done in smaller bits if needed, and you don't necessarily have to go all in. Be a part-time student at your own pace.
Aug 6, 2024
đź“ż
I have put my undergrad to the side for the moment and am pursuing a masters.
make Sure you don’t leave room for regret that you could not have done more!
Mar 26, 2024
Top Recs from @royallmonarch
6d ago
đź“´
I consume a lot of music regularly, and a huge part of keeping a fresh diet of new listens going is having enough sources of recommendations that aren’t an algorithm that either 1) reinforces your existing listening patterns, keeping you stagnant in your tastes, or 2) platforms whoever paid enough to push their product to the top, serving you something that may not inherently be of inferior quality, but may not align with your tastes, may not be exciting beyond just being a new release, and realigns your current listening habits to be more in line with what the average user on the platform is also listening to — which socially might have benefits but which creates a homogeneity of consumption that can become bland since you’re listening to something really just because it’s the next product on the assembly line to have its public moment and not because anything about the music actually captured your attention. the current landscape of streaming is designed to keep you at an all you can eat buffet where you take what’s served to you, and as a result a lot of us have forgotten how to look at a menu and order.
so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, it’s meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework that’s still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether it’s available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data.
Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so i’m forced to consider its value (usually i’ll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as i’ll buy a few releases i’ve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they don’t get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until i’m done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isn’t coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music.
so how do you know what to order? for me, I’m getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether it’s bandcamp daily, y’all lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because it’s kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences it’s like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because there’s no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now i’m listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.
LAST thing i’ll say — because in yappin about this i’m realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of “vibes” and “aesthetics” and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship i’m forming with what i’ve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didn’t have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. that’s ok! maybe I rank it lower but now i’ve actually taken time to consider it, it’s in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often i’ll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason.
aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume
Feb 29, 2024
4d ago