05/25/2021

16 years of school. Who wouldn’t be burnt out after finishing? Another reason was in order to proceed to pharmacy school without a gap year, I would’ve had to apply the summer before my senior year at UCR. During that time, I still wasn’t sure which path I wanted to choose, so it didn’t make sense to apply at the time. Now that I’ve graduated from UCR and finished my pharmacy school applications, what were my plans for this well deserved gap year?

I had everything laid out in my head: travel the world and experience new cultures; continue volunteer work for the homeless population; work a side hustle to make some extra cash; learn a new language; work on building my physique - all things to develop myself personally and gain a new perspective on life. No more countless nights spent in the library studying, no more procrastinating on school projects, and no more sitting through boring ethnic studies lectures.

Now, lets get to what I actually did during my gap year. The 3 words that ruined my year: League of Legends. Don’t get me wrong, its an extremely fun and challenging game. Its just that I legitimately felt like I got addicted. For the first 5 months of my gap year, my day consisted of breakfast - League of Legends - lunch - gym - League of Legends - dinner - League of Legends - sleep. All my idealistic plans of a gap year went down the drain. I got stuck in this monotonous daily routine where I eventually became restless.

One day while I was going to the gym, I took notice of a Domino’s pizza store next door with a “now hiring” sign posted up. I finished my workout, went home and proceeded with my usual routine. This may sound corny but it really did happen, I promise you. That night, I actually had a dream that changed my life: my dream self had applied to that Domino’s store I saw during the day and was flipping pizzas. In the morning when I woke, I was inspired to get out of this slump of a routine. I went to the gym, and when I finished the workout, I went right next door to submit my application for a pizza delivery driver position. About a week later, Edgar the store manager called me in for an interview and I began training the week after that.

In hindsight, a seemingly simple job at Domino’s taught me so much more in terms of practicality than any single class I had taken in college. How to build relationships with new people; how to excel in customer service; how to diffuse difficult situations between colleagues or customers; how to manage time and money; how to be humble. I consider these to be life lessons, as they’re skills that are easily transferable in anything you do. Keep in mind this was my first "real” job… I know it’s kind of late in life, but better late than never. I’ll never forget the nights I bonded with coworkers over washing crust off deep dish pans or folding hundreds of pizza boxes. I ate loads of leftover pizzas, worked, and built countless memories with Domino’s for 7 months. Trust me, it was a much more rewarding experience than going on a 10-loss streak on League and rage-quitting.

Special shout-out to Edgar and Bill, for taking me under your wings and giving me this incredible opportunity to develop myself.

It was now August 2016, and the USC School of Pharmacy’s white coat ceremony was next week.