Gap year experiences can lessen the blow when it comes to adjusting to college and being thrown into a brand new environment, making it easier to focus on academics and activities rather than acclimation blunders.
Looking like a prick, making blunders and doing bizarre things in the night doesn't render us unfit for society; it just makes us a bit more like the greatest scholar of the northern European Renaissance.
This produces between ten and 100 times as many mutations as the traditional method, and thus increases the chances of blundering across some useful ones.
I think we can view change as something negative when it doesn't go as smoothly as we expected it to, or we struggle to find our peace, but I have rather enjoyed blundering through this new chapter of my story.