Gap Year(s)

[Heather]

This came up elsewhere today, and because the average age of our user is around 17, it occurred to me it might be relevant to talk about in general for some of you.

In a word, while there's a assumed, institutionalized pattern of going to high school/secondary school and straight to college/university (for those going), that isn't an only option. It might be the right option, which is great, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it is, or it isn't even possible not to take time between.

Taking some time off in between -- a gap year, or maybe more -- is also an option. That can be to save up money, to catch a bit of a break, to figure out what you want to do, to get some time where you can take a break from the idea you HAVE to figure out what you want to do, to practice being on your own away from home first or more gradually...whatever.

I took one myself, mostly to earn and save more money so I could go to college, but also because my high school was great, but very demanding, and I was exhausted, and because I had decided to radically change my goals and focus in the end of high school. It wound up being great for me in all those ways, and was also just a really treasured year of my life. I have a lot of great memories from that year, and when I did start college, I went in pretty refreshed rather than already burnt out.

Obviously, everyone's mileage varies, but thought I'd just offer up a personal slice to kick off thoughts or ideas about this, varied experiences, or other things around this stuff.

[Onionpie]

I've always found it a little weird that more people DON'T take a gap year. None of my friends took one, and several of them seemed to think that it wasn't even an option. I have one friend who didn't take a break between highschool and her undergrad, OR undergrad and her master's! And she seemed to think it would be the end of the world if there was any break in between any of those?? Despite being INCREDIBLY burnt out after her undergrad? Whuuuut! I think the reason nobody I know took a break is partly because my neighbourhood is primarily upper-middle-class suburban families so there isn't considered to be any valid REASON for any of them to take a year off because most people's parents can afford to pay for them to go through uni. Because of course in a competitive status-y culture like middle-class suburbia taking a break for mental well-being just isn't... considered a valid option...

I didn't take a break between highschool and my undergrad, but that's because I wasn't feeling burnt out by high school, and the scholarship I was offered hinged on me going to university straight from high school. And, unlike for a lot of my peers, me being able to afford university relied on my good scholarship. However, I AM taking a break this year between my undergrad and my B.Ed, primarily to save up money so I can actually afford to do my B.Ed But I also want time to fall back in love with my passions, because doing 5 years of uni did turn it into a bit of a chore. I also just want some experience in life outside of school.

My parents both took a gap year off before going to university and they both found it really worthwhile and fulfilling in the ways they were hoping it would be.

[Redskies]

I took a gap year between secondary school and university. I felt that my personal world was pretty small and wanted to enlarge it before university - it definitely had that effect and helped a lot at university. I also really wanted and needed a break from classrooms and learning pressure, and wanted to see other things that people do in the world to remind me why I, personally, wanted to be in more education. I lived at home, worked in various temp jobs and saved money, then went on an organised scheme and travelling to another continent for 4 months. It was the travel-and-other-continent thing that I really wanted to do, and that was what the money-saving was for. I had to fund the travel, so just spending a summer travelling or on a scheme wasn't an option - I needed a gap year to have months of working and saving for the travel.

When people are thinking of going from secondary school to higher education, a year's difference can seem like a Really big deal. Even by the end of university, it's mostly not. By the time different people have done extra "sandwich" years in industry or vocational training, taken undergraduate courses of different basic lengths, changed their subject, repeated due to illness/life events, there are so many people who graduate on a different timescale to the expected/basic/straight-through one, you're really not unusual at all. You may well be in the majority.

A little differently to Onionpie's cultural context, I think, in the UK a gap-year was seen as a very privileged option, and there are a bunch of very unflattering upper-class stereotypes about it. I know some people take time out to save money for university, but I think it's rarer, because one still has to pay for living costs in that time, so if one's family is unable or unwilling to financially support you (housing etc), you make little profit; also, the way the loan system works, you might get a big debt from university costs but you pay it back only when you have income, so many people don't have an absolute financial barrier to starting university in the first place. (Yes, the prospect of a giant debt is a meaningful barrier - I'm trying to say that starting undergraduate university is not a financial impossibility for many people.) Going to university is seen in some communities as a luxury still, and a gap-year tends to be seen as a Big luxury and is often stereotyped as a doss-year.

I was fortunate to have living-costs support from my parents while I worked and saved money, and I just ignored or put up with people's ideas or assumptions about me and my background (thinks "yeah, not really privileged, self-centred/selfish, likely to abandon my education, or middle class here, folks, but whatever you wanna think"). Having a plan in advance and being booked on a scheme probably helped a bit with people whose opinions mattered, like my parents and university admissions (applying for deferred entry), to show that mine wasn't a "doss year". (To be clear, *I* think that it should be socially acceptable to just need a break if one is exhausted or distressed from school or to figure out general life direction, too.) Both the work and the voluntary scheme/travel added to me and my life experiences So Much, as I knew they would. It's definitely one of the best things I've done.

[Jacob]

I have to say I have a lot more of those negative associations Redskies talks about regarding gap years. But I don't think that is about gap years in general so much is it is about a specific gap-year industry which preys on people who are looking for that authentic opportunity to think a little more about life before making such a big jump to university level education.Volunteer labour in developing countries is sometimes used to undercut local workers, and gap-year companies can often accept massive fees to deliver young people to communities where they and their unskilled labour are not needed and where none of the money finds its way to those who might need it.

It really makes a mess of what gap years can be for many people. The class system in the UK is frankly a mess and imo is the main thing to blame.

It means that at the same time that disparaging stereotypes are applied to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of themselves it reserves real self reflection for upper-class youth. One example is that I feel like there is a massive class division just between me and my brother because I went to university and he didn't. Class animosity puts more focus on class markers than it does actual exploitation.

I think I really would have benefited from some respite from my parents, before heading straight into a system of university assessment.

A lot of very privileged people I have met at university and who have 'been travelling' do have a real colonial attitude to it... (very http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour) so it is really hard for me to allow myself (and those who project those stereotypes onto everyone) to imagine life outside of work or outside of study and it's benefits, when it's either flaunted by people better off than us or a way our friends were ripped off by big companies.

I don't think that has done me any good.

I have had a really hard time of university because it was for me primarily an escape from my homelife, and one with very few options because UK university level education doesn't include majoring and minoring, (joint honours are an undersupported novelty) so I was a bit stuck with a decision made at a time when I really lacked the confidence.

It totally got better but had I taken a year away for me, and a change of environment, I would definitely have had a chance to reach some conclusions I made, a lot quicker.

I know some people who travelled to live in their university town for a year before starting studies which is probably just one of many options, including international travel that never occurred to me. I would so do something along those lines the second time around.

[Jacob]

I just found this excellent documentary made by an activisty film-maker friend of mine a few years ago about all the negative stuff (about the 'development tourism' industry), it also emphasises how good gap years can be: http://vimeo.com/20281526