I also skipped a grade in elementary, graduated young, and took a gap year abroad. I spent a year with a host family in Istanbul, learned a language few non-natives speak, and saw a culture from the inside few tourists would ever see. More importantly, I came back with the confidence I could learn a language or really almost anything I set my mind to, navigate an unfamiliar country, and identify cultural differences as differences and not somehow weird or wrong.
I started college the same age as my classmates, and notably more mature and aware of the world around me.
