First off, I'm happy to see a high schooler considering a gap year. As someone that received the whole "go to college asap or be irrelevant" talk, I deeply wish

First off, I'm happy to see a high schooler considering a gap year. As someone that received the whole "go to college asap or be irrelevant" talk, I deeply wish that I had the resources to take a gap year and really find out if I wanted to enter college in the first place. As to your question, I'd recommend finding a job that will cover your living expenses. Nothing too brutal, but enough so that you're not totally broke. This will allow you to really leverage your free time in order to do some soul searching. Tech ideas include contributing to open source, starting a business, writing a few crud websites, building a computer, etc etc etc. You also have several non-tech opportunities available such as climbing a mountain, improving your mental health, getting into a relationship, and other things. Most importantly, see this gap year as a way to better yourself as a whole. Don't use it just to build a thousand projects thinking that a large software company will notice. Really dive down to figure out what makes you, well, you. I hope this helps you figure things out.