Deciding to take a gap year isn’t always an easy decision to make, especially if you’re not sure what you plan on doing during the break. Sometimes it can be discouraging if you don’t have a plan, but there is absolutely no reason to be worried. For those of you who want to take a gap year but are unsure of what to do, here are some ideas:

Continue working at your current job. If you have a retail job, work in the food industry, or even work in a the health field, stay working at your job. This is to ensure that you still have income coming in. The reason to continue working at your current job is because at the end of the day, it is still experience you can put on your resume. Working retail or in the food industry may not sound ideal, but if you continue working there and putting 110% in, eventually there may be opportunities to move up the ladder. This experience will help you to eventually land better paying jobs. If a position is hiring for a management position or leadership role, your experience in retail would help you with that.

Volunteer . If you took time off of school to build more experience or to figure out what you want to do, the best way way to spend this gap year is to volunteer. Volunteering is a great way to use your time, while also helping out others. Volunteering can be working at a soup kitchen and cooking and serving food to the homeless. This can also include working at the park and picking up trash and litter. Doing such activities may spark an interest in nature or influence what you chose to do as a career to help the environment. You can also volunteer at a group home or community center to figure out if you like taking care of the elderly or if you like taking care of people in general. The volunteer experience is endless and there is a variety for you to choose from.

Pick up a hobby or learn something new . Picking up a hobby can be doing something that you already enjoy doing and want to improve on such as writing, painting, drawing, playing a sport, dancing, etc. As for learning something new, this can intertwine with picking up a hobby. If you don’t want to improve on an interest that you already have, you can learn an entirely new hobby. If you’ve never taken dancing classes before and you want to use dancing as a way to get fit, that’s an option for you as well. If you want to learn something completely new, you can learn a new language.

Resell your old clothes or items . This option can lead to you creating your own business. When you open up a shop, whether on Etsy, EBay, Depop, Poshmark, etc. , you are essentially creating your own “business" as you have to double check if customers sent messages or if customers made a purchase. This is a great way to spend a gap year because it will keep you occupied while also giving you some sort of income and helping you to gain experience in maintaining your own business.

Travel . You don’t need to travel to entirely new country or continent. This can easily be traveling to a new city an hour away from you or to a city you haven’t been to in years. Traveling is a great way to experience a new culture, try new food and potentially learn about the city you’re visiting. Doing this can help you experience meeting and working with a diverse group of people and to potentially learn a new language.

These are the top 5 gap year ideas that most people tend to do when they are out of school. Whether you want to take time off of school to work 3 different jobs or to volunteer or to set up your own business, it is important to know that everything is a learning experience. This gap year is meant to teach you more about yourself, what you like and don’t like and to keep yourself busy and productive.