After receiving their Stanford admission letters, Sasha Landauer, ’20, and Jiyoung Jeong, ’21, each decided to take a year off of school. But when they sought out information about gap-year experiences, they found it hard to come by—and many options were cost prohibitive. Ultimately, Landauer settled on a string of work stints, hopping from farming in Italy to child care in France to teaching in Nepal to hotel maintenance in Greece. The following year, Jeong taught high schoolers in China, practiced ceramics in South Korea, worked in a Buddhist temple in New York and helped refugees in Greece.
Along the way, each decided to start a website to amass information for future gappers. When a mutual friend put the two in touch, they consolidated their efforts, and No Crap Gap Guides was born. Their free service compiles testimonials, offers advice and connects readers with mentors. “No gapper that we’ve encountered (and we’ve met many) has ever regretted their decision to take a year off,” they write.
Nick Burns, ’18, is a former Stanford intern.
