An open letter about my gap year | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

The post explores Abigail Africa’s uncertainty about returning to USC during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether taking a gap year would better serve her education, finances, and career. She argues that remote classes cannot fully replace the community, hands-on projects, and extracurricular experiences she planned for her senior year. Her decision is also shaped by family expectations, cultural background, and Silicon Valley’s complicated “dropout” mythology.

The Case for a Gap Year

• Africa had envisioned her final year around a senior capstone involving pitching, running, and growing a startup.
• A remote semester would mean losing experiences such as:
  • Collaborating in makerspaces
  • Experimenting with hardware
  • Recording podcasts and producing videos
  • Building close relationships with classmates and professors
• Many students faced different constraints:
  • Some would attend classes from their childhood bedrooms.
  • Others questioned paying full tuition for Zoom-based education.
  • International students risked visa complications if they did not return.
• Africa’s reasons for considering time off were:
  • Waiting to return until she could fully participate in campus life
  • Working during the pandemic and building savings
  • Gaining more startup experience before potentially founding a company

Family Expectations and the Value of Education

• Africa’s family worried that a gap year could become permanent and prevent her from finishing her degree.
• Her immigrant grandparents sacrificed established careers and worked minimum-wage jobs to support their children’s education.
• Her parents similarly prioritized education over luxuries and invested heavily in her schooling.
• For Africa’s family, education is the reliable path to success, while gap years and dropping out appear risky and difficult to justify.
• Africa recognizes that she does not yet have a convincing answer to the fear that delaying graduation could mean never returning.

Education, Economics, and Cultural Identity

• Students were weighing the practical consequences of enrolling, taking time off, or graduating during an unstable economy.
• Key questions included:
  • How employers would interpret a gap year
  • What a degree is worth under these circumstances
  • How losing access to a campus community would affect students
  • Whether delaying school would create financial advantages
• Africa also considers whether these calculations differ for her as a woman of color, particularly in an industry shaped by unequal access and representation.

Silicon Valley’s Dropout Mythology

• Technology culture often celebrates the highly privileged, frequently male, elite-university dropout who becomes a successful founder.
• Africa has rarely seen herself represented in that narrative.
• Her startup internship gives her hope that the industry may be opening to broader kinds of talent and that meaningful opportunities can exist without a completed degree.
• At the same time, she questions whether apparent meritocracy is truly based only on ability, since representation, privilege, and access strongly influence who receives opportunities.

Ultimately, Africa presents the gap-year decision as more than an academic or financial calculation. It is also a question of identity, family history, opportunity, and whether traditional educational paths remain the best route during a period of extraordinary disruption.