I’m currently on a gap year, If you play your cards correctly genuinely you will learn a lot about how important education is etc. Through this gap year I’ve now had 4 jobs including my current one and each of them have taught me how important it is to work hard to try and get a good job or else you’ll be stuck in the low rated jobs. I work pretty much 6 days a week as it keeps me busy. I only started doing this schedule in November but I’ve already learnt a lot. However between September and October I was in a really bad place because I hadn’t had anything planned and was chasing after money. I learned a lot of lessons from chasing money, ended up losing more than I made lol. But from that I learned valuable lessons. Also another thing that you learn is definitely how tough the real world is, turning up somewhere you may not want to be but still turning up is a valuable skill you won’t learn until you take that job or time out.
Another thing I’ll mentioned is you may feel behind due to your friends being at uni or in apprenticeships but honestly, the lessons you learn I say are valuable enough