What is a CREATIVE gap year?
A gap year doesn't have to mean a year wandering the world or figuring out what comes next. For anyone with a creative interest, passion or hobby, it can be something much more intentional: time to make things.
A creative gap year gives you the space to explore an artistic practice outside the usual pressures of school. You might spend that time writing, filmmaking, acting, painting, making music, taking photographs or working in ceramics. You might arrive knowing exactly what you want to pursue, or with absolutely no idea. Both are good reasons to take one.
More Than Taking Art Classes
A creative gap year shouldn't simply feel like another semester of school. The point isn't to replace one timetable with another. It's to have enough structure to keep you working, but enough freedom to discover where your own ideas lead.
That might mean spending several days developing a short film, rewriting a story after a conversation with your mentor, experimenting with a new medium, collaborating with someone in another discipline or abandoning an idea altogether and starting again. It's about developing a creative practice, not simply completing assignments.
Do I Need to Know What I Want to Do?
Not at all! Some students take a creative gap year because they're considering art school, drama school or a creative degree. Others know they're creative but aren't sure they want to make it their career. Some just want time to play, be with other creatives or do something different before college.
A gap year gives you time to explore that before making a major decision about university or your future.
You may arrive thinking of yourself as an actor and discover that you love writing. You may finally have enough uninterrupted time to take photography seriously. Or you may discover that creativity matters enormously to you, even if it isn't going to become your profession. That's part of the point.
Why Take a Creative Gap Year Abroad?
You don't have to go abroad to make good work. But putting yourself somewhere unfamiliar can change the way you see things. At Berridge, students come to live together in a 400-year-old château in Normandy, France. They have dedicated time for their own creative work, but they also visit museums, explore French towns and cities, travel, cook, eat together and become part of a small international creative community. The experience of living somewhere different becomes part of the creative process.
What Should You Look For?
Look for a program that gives you the time and space to explore YOURSELF.
How much time will you have to make your own work? Will you have individual mentorship? Who will you live with? Can you work across disciplines? Is there room to experiment, or are you following a predetermined curriculum? Most importantly, ask yourself whether the program gives you time, space and support to find your own direction.
Let Yourself Breathe
We've been bringing creative students to France since 2008, and they rarely arrive in exactly the same place. Some have portfolios and plans. Some are exhausted by school. Some want to become artists. Others simply know that making things is important to them and want to find out where that might lead. A creative gap year isn't about having your future figured out.
It's about giving yourself the time to explore possibilties, to feel freedom outside a traditional classroom and possibly to just take a breath.
Find out more about Creative Semester. We hope to see you in France!
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