Wednesday, December 5, 2012


Mind the gap!


Are gap years just for spoiled, lazy, rich kids in wealthy countries, or should more students have this experience?  Do gap years hinder academic progress?  If you take a gap year, how should you spend it?  How should it be financed?  Do you agree with this writer’s assessments of the benefits of taking a gap year?

6 comments:

  1. I find this article quite interesting. I am a fan of gap years. What an author or the article is basically saying is that a gap year is an excellent experience for young people. I agree with this statement. I think that during the gap year young people can learn and gain useful skills for their adult's life.

    There is a stereotype that the gap year is”abused” by children from rich families. They spend lots of money during the gap year, travel all around the world and have amazing time. However, I think this is only a one side of a coin. Also these young people need to be responsible for themselves when on a such trip. This definitely gives them a useful experience. Gap year in terms of travel is also undertaken by children from not so rich families. It is probably harder for them to have such a trip, since they need to make money before they decide to go. Because of this they gain even more experience and become even more prepared for their lives. So, whether poor or rich young people take a gap year and decide to travel, it definitely gives them a relevant experience.

    The gap year can be spent by doing anything. It is not just traveling, having parties or simply being with friends. Nowadays, European Union created amazing opportunities for young people willing to take a gap year (I am sure there are many other opportunities not just these offered by EU). There are programs such as Youth in Action. This programme enables young people to do whatever they want. They can write their own sensible project and receive funding. They can do some research, they can establish some institutions, nongovernmental or nonprofit corporations or some think tanks. Moreover, EU also offer volunteer works. People take part in such volunteer work for the whole year and all the costs of accommodation, food, travel will be covered. I think this is amazing! I, personally, wanted to take a gap year and go to do some environmental volunteer work. A friend of mine was in Norway and he did some work to protect whales. I find it absolutely gorgeous. However, I did not take a gap year. It was caused by my confusing application process to the US and to the UK. However, I did not give up this dream and I hope I will be able to do such a work during some holiday when I be on a college.

    As I have mentioned, there are many ways how to spend your gap year. They are also some funds which you can use and so the financial part will not cause your gap year to fall. If young people want to gain an amazing experience, there are ways how to achieve it. However, I also think, that young people and probably their parents need to think carefully about taking a gap year. Some young people are just not prepared to take it and they can just waste their time by doing nothing progressive. I believe that they gap year is not a holiday. It also teaches us. It is just other kind of learning and knowing.

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  2. I decided to go for this article, because I am faced with a very similar situation and I was therefore genuinely interested in what it had to say. I am faced with a semi gap year, as school years in Australia are shifted by six months. Since I want to study in Australia, I do not really have any other option than to wait the six months.
    Naturally, I wanted to know what sorts of disadvantages were hidden behind this type of gap and while staying in Australia for three weeks during the last summer break, I had the opportunity to do a little research myself.
    First of all (from the perspective of an unnamed Australian high school principal), taking a gap year is not that uncommon among students, whether it comes to foreigners waiting for the school year to start, or domestic students, simply taking a break from education.
    Second of all (from the perspective of a member of the admissions commission from an unnamed Australian university), gap years do not really affect the process of admission to a university, since they are fairly common. There is no major difference between a person that takes a gap year and one that does not, and both have an equal chance of getting in. What MAY make a difference, is how you spend the time.
    Third of all (from the perspective of the head of an unnamed multinational company), when hiring employees, a company usually prefers people that do not show as “solely concentrated on education” and usually go for the people that already have some field experiences (no matter how minor). There is a difference between a student that went straight through primary school, high school, university and got a PhD, and a person that took a gap year and finished his studies after four years at a university. I pretty much agree with what the article states, as my research results agree with it too. There is a difference between sitting in a classroom for twenty years and actually doing something real. Something that relates to the real world. The classroom is just a virtual place, designed to teach you the basics. Not being faced with real life problems, THAT hinders education.
    I intend to take the 6 month gap period. I do not consider myself lazy or spoiled. I do not come from a rich family, nor do I come from a wealthy country, so I do not think these should be considered the “reasons” for people taking gap years. Neither do I believe that taking gap years is the result of not knowing what one wishes to do in his life. I am a person that had his career path chosen since I was twelve and still I did not avoid having to take a gap period. It is just a result of the circumstances, yet I believe it will only benefit me.
    Whether more people should take gap years is something I cannot answer. I might be able to answer this in ten years, but not now. All I can say is that if it is to be considered well spent, it should give you some experiences. Taking a part time job in your field of interest would finance the gap year and give you some initial skills that universities might actually find preferable when assessing your application.
    Nobody can say that taking a gap year is wrong. How you spend the time is what decides whether it was right or wrong.

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    Replies
    1. By so far, I thought that gap year means that one takes a pause from school because he decides to do so. Simon's case does not match this definition, since he just waits 6 months for school as I will wait 3 or 4 months for my higher education to start. I am not really sure whether gap year, or semi gap year can be understood like this. However, this is not important. Interesting point, which Simon mentioned, is that gap year may seem interesting for future employers. I definitely agree with this statement. Of course, it depends on what that particular person was doing during his gap year. However, maybe an employers would find interesting if the person just said: “I took my car and traveled across the US.” It is surely an experience, which probably brought certain level of responsibility. The question which arises in my head is whether an employer consider also such an experience relevant in terms of offering a job. What is better to do during a gap year? Go on internship or just travel? No matter what the answer is, definitely an extra experience is a positive enrichment of one's CV.

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    2. You are right, my case does not match the definition. I too was always fascinated by the idea of a gap year, yet if I was to take a break for an entire year, I would probably not go for it. One year is a long time. Yet 3 months seems to me as too short. I was, in a way, lucky that it worked out like this and that I can take a break for a period of time somewhere in between those two.

      You ask what is better to do during a gap year. I believe you are not limited to a single thing. If you want to travel for two or three months and then use the rest of the time for something else, that is fine. As I said, one year is a long time.

      Different people can spend gap years in different ways, some more effective for their future, some less. It all depends on the field one wishes to study. If someone wants to study the Law, I cannot really imagine a place where that person would be useful as an intern in that field. I wish to study Computer Science and I could work in the field right now. And in almost whichever part of that field. So, during the gap year, I can already start gaining experiences in the field I wish to study.

      I am not exactly familiar with what you want to study (I am guessing something with chemistry), so I cannot assess your situation correctly, yet I believe you would be able to make good use of a gap year either way.

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  3. The article about taking a gap year caught my attention since I myself was deciding whether or not to take a year-off. I would like to study medicine in the Czech republic and for that I have to get into the university by passing exams for which I have to study very hard. I was thinking about taking a gap year after graduating from IB during which I would travel and prepare for the medicine exams.

    As the article suggests, a gap year definitely is not a bad idea, it may give a person a new perspective in life. I agree that it definitely is not only for the rich, drug-taking teenagers that don’t have what to do in life. Moreover I think that the pressure from tests, final exams, and even the pressure from parents during high school is a huge factor that influences students when deciding to take a gap year. By taking a year off the person may change his/her own view of the world, may find out what he/she really wants to do, and what university he/she would like to attend later. Fortunately, one of my friends that studied on the IB went to study law in Prague, however during the first year she left school because she would law quite boring and uninteresting. She told me that now she is “free“ and has time to decide what she wants to do in life, and where she wants to study. I don’t think that this is bad, since I think it is important to have a job that fulfills you or interests you at least a bit, because then you are not going to be happy the rest of your life. By choosing the right university, to will may easily find a work interesting for you.

    On the other hand, I think that that there is one issue that must be considered when graduated students take a gap year, and is the primary reason why I have not decided to take a year off. The problem is that once you take a gap year, have fun, explore new places, travel, or even stay at home, you then stop learning. When the pressure from high school goes away, you don’t learn since it is not a routine anymore. A big portion of people that have to pass exams to get into a school that take a gap year to “learn“, are not able to get into the university or even don’t want to. People may get lazy after the year-off and prolong the year until they decide not to go to university.

    To conclude, I think that a gap year can be inspiriting and relieving for some students that feel the urge to take a break from school, however, it has its risk that definitely need to be considered by the graduated student.

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  4. @Matúš

    I do not really share the idea with Matúš, because I am not a big fan of gap years. However, I accept the fact that a gap year can be often a source of experience. My opinion about gap years is strongly affected by taking a pause in the stress provided by the school, also mentioned by Nina. Once you stop facing it, you won’t probably want to face it again. This means that many gap year students will then have difficulties with going back to school. Unfortunately, some students may refuse to go back too. Though, I agree with Matúš that there are many opportunities how to spend the gap year in an efficient way. The examples he mentioned are perusable. The programs, volunteer works and different organizations provide a great source of experience, may be beneficial for students to a quite a big extent.

    On the other hand, I am not quite sure about traveling giving as much experience as the programs. Travelling is more or less a hobby, which for sure requires responsibility. Responsibility may be considered as experience, but if I had a child who wants to travel through the gap year I would be afraid to let a young person to travel around the world. Nowadays, the era is extremely bad because people do not show respect. They steal, vandalize and kill almost on a regular basis. Personally, I would be afraid to travel alone. If it would be so, that more students agreed to have a gap year and to travel around the world, my attitude towards gap year traveling would differ too. Lastly, I also agree that the amount of experience that can be gained in a gap year does not depend on the level whether the students are rich or poor.

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