"A gap year gave me more life skills than 13 years of schooling"

Meeting new people and dealing with a different environment “builds your confidence like crazy,” says my mother. “You’re more adaptable to different situations and challenges.” My father said the year taught us a valuable lesson about money. “You begin to realize in a democratic capitalist society, and maybe in most other societies, if you want to move up in the world and get a bit more money in your hands, you have to have some kind of qualification, or you have to do something that someone wants,” he says. “I think in having to find a job, to understand the value of money and how quickly it goes if you don’t look after it and how hard it is to get, means you perhaps took a different view of your studies.”