Would it look bad to have a gap year half way through uni?

I wanna have a year of absence after first year for mental health reasons.
My grades are great but I don't want my future employers thinking I struggled academically, wasted a year or had to retake a year/failed.
I want to be a lawyer and apply for prestigious places so I'm worried whether it would look bad on my CV that I completed my degree longer than expected.

Reply 1

Zarek

For many people academic progress is not linear and uni is flexible I would be inclined to prioritise your wellbeing now. I suppose you might be asked to explain the gap at interview but I would not envisage it’s a significant disadvantage. It might not be a bad ideal to talk though your options with support services through your SU

Reply 2

McGinger

Email your Personal Tutor or similar and get the conversation started.
And, if you have not already done so, contact your University's Student Support or Student Wellbeing service.

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post

by sanwwio

Usually you can't just take a year out without cause once you start a course at uni - typically you can only formally take an interruption of studies on the basis of it being medically needed - this includes mental health issues though. But you may need to evidence this with a letter from your GP and/or any other specialists you're seeing for example. So just something to keep in mind, it is a formal process you need to go through (especially if the uni have not initiated it/recommended it). Sometimes you can also interrupt your studies if you have a yearlong placement lined up for a course which doesn't have a year in industry variant but this is very variable.

As far as employability, I suspect for the majority it won't really be an issue (a simple "due to health issues I had to interrupt my studies for a year, once these were resolved I returned and successfully completed my degree" explains it just fine I expect). I have in a couple of places seen employers state they can only consider applicants who complete the course in the normal length of time for that degree - this doesn't seem common from what I've seen and you may not want to work for such an employer anyway.

No matter what the starting point here is to see your GP, talk about your mental health issues, see what their treatment/management plan is, and discuss whether they think interrupting your studies might support your recovery. You can then reach out to your personal tutor to understand the process at your uni. If required, at that point you can request a letter from your GP outlining your diagnosis, management, and ideally I suppose that they support the proposal of an interruption of studies, to submit as part of the process (it may not be necessary although in my experience it was).