Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Taking a Gap Year or Dropping Out?

Reading carefully through the details of your academic history, you have certainly shown that you can perform at an extremely high level because you are gifted AND talented, but have some gaps in your CV. In competitive application processes for higher levels of academia and/or work, such gaps are relevant, no matter how brilliant a candidate might be - they may affect how well a candidate meets the essential criteria of a position or raise a flag that the candidate might cherry pick their workload and shirk the less appealing duties & responsibilities of their position. Selection panels obviously do look for talent, but in my experience, they often consider reliability as a greater virtue. You will find this to be the case in any job, even if you set up your own business, because clients will value the same things as employers. Therefore, I encourage you not to give up on your pursuit of an academic career, but rather to spend some time tending to the gaps which might be holding you back.