Ask HN: When is the best time to take time off?

[zachthewf]

I'm a college freshman CS major at a pretty difficult university. The norm here is that every summer, one does an internship, then after 4 years, everyone gets a job or goes to grad school. I think CS is awesome--but I also think there's a lot to be lost by following a singular, career-driven path. Although I was incredibly eager to go to college, I'm now a little jealous of friends who decided to take a year off to travel.

So, to all you HN-ers: Did you ever take time off from your "life track" to travel (or something similar)? Was it worth it? When is the best time to do it?

[gmichnikov]

I'm 26, I did not take time off during college to travel, and I strongly regret not doing so. I recently convinced my girlfriend to take 2 unpaid months off work to travel with me (Aus/NZ). She was very hesitant when I first brought it up, but now she is 100% happy that she did it.

I recommend taking time off as soon as possible. That way, when you return to college, your current classmates will still be there for 2 years while you meet your new classmates. Taking time off after college may also be an option if you are confident in your ability to get a job without the support that a senior might get from the career office.

Having said that, you should be sure that you will be happy spending so much time apart from all of your close friends (if you plan to travel alone). You may want to consider just a semester rather than a year.

[Travis]

For reference, I'm 28 now, so I can still somewhat remember college (or, at least, remember that much of my college time was hazy).

Each summer, like a good CS student, I got an internship back home. I worked as a programmer -- what I thought I wanted to do the rest of my life.

Don't do that. Honestly, in a summer's worth of time, you can put together a pretty compelling startup (or at least the start of it). I would recommend building something, ANYthing, each summer, that will teach you a practical skill. And try to build things that will make you money, because making money is a skill in and of itself.

Things to learn about, that you might not think of: * effective email marketing. How do you get stuff delivered. How do you know it was delivered. What kind of messages are best? Can you sell someone something via email? * effective SEO * effective customer service

If you can build a tiny project to explore each of these, you'll be doing yourself a major favor. I sure wish I had explored my entrepreneurial side in college.

[natgordon]

Here's my personal experience. In my opinion internships are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because you get to try out companies and they get to try out you before committing to either full-time. I went to University of Waterloo which has a strong internship program (with 6 4-month internship terms before graduation).

In my case, I was offered a full-time position at my last internship (Amazon) which I accepted. I started the job 6 months after graduation. During that time I traveled cheaply (in Asia and Central America) on student loans which I knew I could pay off because of my job. I did some of that solo and some with a friend.

I always knew I wanted to take a big trip again before I was 30. I left my job and did just that from 2008 - 2010. I had saved a lot of money while working just by living below my means. During this time I also worked on coding projects that have been fulfilling.

It's just my experience. It seems like you know what you want. As long as you prioritize these goals you'll see the world.

[namank]

I'm doing that right now. I'm in 5 year engineering program where we don't get summers off. So, I took last fall off to work on a startup - LOVED IT. But I realized if I continued doing that, I would probably drop out of school. Not wanting to put an upper bound on my academics just yet, I now limit myself to advising other people on startups (I guess some experience is better than none!) and personal projects.

I am going to take the next couple of months off to work and make some money. Then I'm gonna use the money to do research with a prof on some very cool tech while spending my free time hacking electronics and maturing this idea I have for a company.

But keep in mind that this means I graduate late. Because of all the time I'm spending following my whims, I will graduate at least a year later than my classmates.

At the same time, I now have a hell of a resume.

But the biggest plus? Now I actually know what I wanna do with my life.