Skipped College to Travel Abroad; It Helped Me Land My Dream Job

When I reached my senior year of high school (as a scholarship kid at a prestigious college preparatory academy in the US), I did something unheard of among my peers: I didn’t apply to college.

At the time, my plan was to take a gap year to work and travel before using my fluent Italian to attend college in Italy, where university was cheaper and the lifestyle was a better fit for me.

But after what I thought would be my gap year — in which I worked in a restaurant, volunteered with children, and backpacked solo through Europe — I discovered I’d missed the deadline to apply for a student visa to Italy.

At 19, with no college applications submitted and my dream of attending university abroad that year shattered, I was completely lost.

So I doubled down on my restaurant career, learning how to mix drinks and picking up extra shifts until I’d saved enough money to travel again. This time, I set my sights on Southeast Asia.

How I found my home away from home

I headed to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where I’d found an opportunity bartending for room and board in a hostel.

After just a few weeks, I had fallen in love with the city — its red dirt roads, chaotic markets, warm people, and the nearby temple complex of Angkor Wat felt like home. There, I felt I belonged more than I ever had in the US.

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Three months later, I went back to the US to gather my belongings and moved full-time to Cambodia. I was 20 years old.

While most of my friends and former classmates were entering their second year at elite universities, I was working two jobs (teaching English and serving tables) six days a week in Siem Reap, and spending my day off hanging out with an international community of expats, eating dinner on the dirt floors of my local friends’ homes, or searching for temple ruins in the jungle. I had never been happier.

Moving to Cambodia put me on my career path

At the time, I was following my instincts to live the life full of adventure I craved, without much sense of what my future held. What I didn’t know then was that my decision to move to a developing country rather than go to college would set me on a path toward my dream career: travel journalism.

While living in Siem Reap, I wrote a column on expat life for a magazine and took on copywriting assignments with a local tour company. Soon, I was writing articles for travel magazines about life in Cambodia.

After nearly two years in Siem Reap, though, I had to move back to the US due to severe health issues. However, I continued writing on the side until I became a full-time freelance writer.

Since then, I’ve built a successful travel journalism and tourism copywriting career, writing for big-name travel magazines, airlines, and tour companies while getting to explore the world.

Most of the time, I don’t regret skipping college

Not once has a potential client or editor asked about my level of education. Career-wise, the only setback I’ve faced is that I’ve never landed so much as an interview for any of the dozens of full-time writing or editing jobs I’ve applied for, most of which required a degree.

There are moments when I feel a twinge of embarrassment for not having gone to college. My parents, sister, and many of my friends from high school are Ivy League graduates, and I can’t relate to their experiences.

Sometimes, people in my circles have spoken condescendingly about those who don’t have college degrees, whether they know I’m a member of that group or not. Once, a client instructed me to write copy “for a low reading level” because the target audience “aren’t the smartest — they only have high school diplomas.”

Most of the time, though, I’m grateful for my decision not to go to college. Instead of taking on student debt, I had transformative travel experiences, learned to speak six languages, and got a head start in my line of work, taking on my first assignments at the age of 20.

I’m 27 now, and already reaching the peak of my career, while many of my friends are still finding their way in theirs.

Someday, intellectual curiosity may bring me back to the classroom, but for now, I’m happy, successful, and grateful for all the experiences I squeezed into the years I could have been studying.