Two Months Ago I Left College
What happens when you take a gap from school to join a YC startup in San Francisco. A story about uncertainty, growth, and learning to face discomfort.
Two Months Ago I Left College
Two months ago I decided to take a gap from school to gain perspective.
It was a safe bet — I was ahead on credits with only five classes left. The downside was manageable. The upside was unknowable.
Shortly after making the decision, I found myself setting up an LLC and moving to San Francisco to join Origami, a YC-backed startup building AI agents.
The Reality of 14-Hour Days
Now I'm spending 14 hours daily with new friends building AI agents. The work is consuming in the best way — the kind of consuming where you look up and realize it's midnight and you genuinely don't want to stop.
But it's not all romantic.
The hard conversations with family and friends have matured me in ways I didn't expect. Explaining to your parents why you're leaving school when you're five classes from a degree is not a fun phone call. Telling friends you won't be around for the last semester — the one everyone said would be the best — isn't easy either.
What Discomfort Actually Feels Like
There's been discomfort. A lot of it. But I've realized that discomfort is just growth in disguise.
The moments that felt the hardest — the first week in a new city where I knew nobody, the imposter syndrome of working alongside people far more experienced than me, the loneliness of a Friday night in an empty apartment — those were the moments that changed me the most.
On Maintaining Relationships
With time so scarce, I've learned to be intentional about maintaining relationships. And here's the counterintuitive thing: those connections actually feel richer despite the distance.
When you have 30 minutes for a phone call instead of unlimited time at a dining hall, you skip the small talk. You get to the real stuff fast. The conversations are better because they have to be.
The Blueprint
This experience has become my blueprint for facing uncertainty in my 20s:
- Calculate the true downside. Mine was manageable — 5 classes I could finish later.
- Optimize for learning rate, not comfort. The environment where you learn fastest is rarely the one where you're most comfortable.
- Invest in relationships intentionally. Distance doesn't kill relationships. Neglect does.
Sometimes stepping away is how you find what you never knew you needed.