As my time at the ASI draws to a close all I can do is feel extremely grateful. Despite knowing that I wanted to spend my gap year at the ASI for a while, I wasn’t able to appreciate just how great the opportunity is. You would think a global pandemic causing the country to lock down for months on end would put a damper on things but I don’t think I could be happier with how I have spent my gap year.

The gap year internship is a fairly unusual experience. I have been able to help the ASI with its work and feel like a truly valued part of the team. I have now helped to research any number of topics and helped to sort out countless footnotes to the point where university seems like it will be a breeze. 

Working at the ASI is different from working a typical office job and that is not just because the office opens at 10. Where else could I say that I believe we should be able to sell our organs and be met by understanding nods. Everyone at the ASI is great at ensuring you are able to back up your claim however whacky it may be. I am even surprised to find people who share my questionable taste in music and interest in languages.

The work that you do is a healthy balance between pouring drinks for TNGs and writing comments for newspapers, between logging RSVPs and writing blogs for a range of sites, between franking parcels and speaking at events, even travelling to foreign countries.

While your friends may not understand what exactly it is you do (get ready to explain what a think tank is endlessly), they will appreciate the tiktoks, insta stories and memes you make for the ASI or other social media posts. And if you’re lucky, even a Telegraph Snapchat appearance.

Spending your gap year at the UK’s best domestic and international economic policy think tank (University of Pennsylvania) doesn’t mean sitting in a stuffy office in Westminster all year. The ASI went to Manchester for Conservative Party conference. We travelled to Gibraltar and Morocco for our AGM. And Matthew Lesh and I were able to pop over to Madrid to speak at LibertyCon (not bad for a year in which we couldn’t travel in the latter half). The ASI was even flexible enough to allow me to take time off, when a friend that I had made through the ASI encouraged me to volunteer as part of one of the Prime Minister’s operations teams planning his and other cabinet ministers’ visits across the country. Upon returning to Westminster on election night it was great to reunite with my colleagues knowing I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to contribute to achieving a more liberal government.

Throughout the lockdown, the weekly Zoom staff meetings have meant that we still feel like a team even while apart so don’t let remote working put you off. I cannot recommend a gap year at the ASI highly enough.

The Adam Smith Institute’s Gap Year programme is open to applications now.