The Trouble with Making Students Choose What They Want to Do in Life Directly After High School
Many students in the United States and beyond are concerned that they burn out on school too easily. In most cases, they are worried because they are having trouble deciding what they want to do for the rest of their life. In order to solve this problem many students choose to job shadow different careers to help solidify their career plans, but many times job shadowing just doesn`t work because these opportunities only allow students to watch. What students really need is hands on experience in a possible field of work to understand if they fully like it or not.
If any of this sounds familiar, consider taking a gap year. For those who don`t know what a gap year is, it is the time period, commonly one entire academic year, between high school and college when students choose to travel, volunteer, or work full time instead of immediately entering college. Gap years are highly beneficial because they allow students to venture into the world to become self-sufficient, renew their passion for learning, and even increase their chances of being accepted and doing well in college.
A common misconception about students who take a gap year is that they`re wasting their life away, not doing anything productive, and won`t want to return to school. This, however, is inaccurate because of several reasons. First of all, students can take this extra year to hold a job to earn money so they won`t have as much debt when they graduate. For example, if a student works 40 hours a week, makes minimum wage, and holds that job for exactly one year, they can make $14,560 or more.For most colleges, this is enough money to pay for one year. Programs such as World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF for short, allow students to travel abroad and work in exchange for room and board. This program lets students experience life as a volunteer while living abroad. Volunteers should expect to work 25-30 hours a week to earn their room and board. Programs such as WWOOF allow costs to be kept to a minimum so that students can afford to live abroad. While students are traveling or volunteering abroad, they are spending their time wisely by constantly learning. Although they won`t be learning in a traditional college setting with textbooks and teacher-led lectures, students will be learning from real life experiences.
For example, look at Prince William. Prince William took a gap year and he trained with the Welsh Guards in Belize, worked in English dairy farms, visited several charities in Africa, and took part in a ten week volunteering program in southern Chile where he helped to construct a school and taught English as a foreign language. Prince William is a great example of how it is sometimes necessary to take a break from schooling to allow time for self-discovery and growth.
By spending a gap year traveling or even volunteering in foreign countries, it will open students` eyes to real life situations and problems facing other societies every day. Traveling to a foreign country will allow students to completely immerse themselves in a new culture and language. By doing this, students may find that a problem in America is not as prevalent in a different country because of their different way of living. While in a new country, students are able to learn about the diversity in the world and see how different some people`s lives are, all while finding out about themselves.
Students gain a better understanding of who they are once they realize that even though they may be an American born citizen, that doesn`t mean they have to act American. By accepting this fact, students may become more accepting of others because they begin to see events and problems from a different perspective. By beginning to see the differences in societies, students may want to make a difference by volunteering.
Students may decide to volunteer their time to build churches, build schools, teach children, or even plant gardens. During their new volunteering adventure, gap year students may find something they are really passionate about and discover what their true calling is in life. A study by Karl Haigler and Rae Nelson, authors of the Gap Year Advantage, found that 60 percent of gap year participants said the volunteering experience influenced or confirmed their choice of major. By having a clearer vision for a college major, students will save money by being able to solely focus on classes relevant to their major.
Gap years are beneficial because they alleviate the constant pressure for students to compete with their peers and do the best that they can do. From a very young age, teachers and parents constantly push children to get good grades because their entire future is riding on how well they do academically. This, along with the added stress of sports and extracurricular activities, is what commonly causes students to lose interest in school and come down with a case of "senioritis". A study by the American Gap Association found that 90% of students who take a gap year return to college within one year. After taking a gap year, students have a renewed desire for education and have a better understanding of their goals for college and beyond.
Colleges and employers are more often than not more impressed by students who have taken a gap year because it means they have gone above and beyond the social "norm.” Colleges are impressed by gap years because this time period shows students` dedication and hard work with whatever they have decided to pursue. Because students have gained so much irreplaceable knowledge and experience, they can connect to colleges better and have been known to get accepted into college easier.
College students from Middleburry College in Vermont and the University of South Carolina who had previously taken a gap year were found to have GPAs of .1 to .4 higher than predicted according to school academic credentials. Once accepted at a college, many admission counselors will grant a student`s wish to defer their admission for up to one year so they can take a gap year. Along with colleges deferring a student`s admission, many scholarships are renewable or can be placed on hold as well.
At Harvard, William Fitzsimmons, the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, stated, "Normally a total of about fifty to seventy students defer (Harvard) college until the next year. The results have been uniformly positive. Harvard`s overall graduation rate of 98% is among the highest in the nation, perhaps in part because so many students take time off."
Often times, gap years increase students` chances of doing well in college and being successful after. After students participated in a gap year program sponsored by Thinking Beyond Borders, a parent offered this testimony: "After Thinking Beyond Borders (TBB), Lucy went on to her freshman year of college and took classes that were meaningful to her, not just classes that filled a requirement. She finished the year with all A`s and more importantly, she was more engaged with her college classroom experience because of the time spent traveling with TBB. Ultimately, her college experience is more valuable as a result of the gap year with TBB." Lucy is just one of many students who has greatly benefited from taking a gap year before college.
In conclusion, many students still don`t feel like they`re quite ready for college and that is acceptable temporarily. However, for the undecided students, please consider taking a gap year. Gap years are proven to be highly beneficial because they allow students to become self sufficient, renew their passion for learning, and even increase their chances of being accepted and doing well in college. A quote that sticks with me and ultimately helps solidify my decision to take a gap year is from an MIT admissions counselor. An MIT admissions counselor once said, "From my years in admissions, the overwhelming sentiment from students who have taken a gap year has been: No one ever regrets having taken a gap year, but plenty of people regret not having taken one."
ont, NW, Suite 520 Washington, DC 20036. Having researched this topic widely, I am convinced that Gap Year is quite valuable for the students who undertake it and it should be recommended for the High School graduates before they join colleges and universities.To begin with, Gap Year gives the young students an opportunity to deeply reflect on their lives and to discern on their true purpose and calling in life. This opportunity is especially important considering the fact that during school life in the modern world, students rarely get opportunity to reflect and to discern their true calling in life. This fact is supported by Fitzsimmons, McGrath, and Ducey, in their article, "Should I Take Time Off".
In this article, the three scholars argue that unlike in the traditional times when the students were allowed to be free during holidays, over the weekends and during evening times after school, in the modern times students have virtually no free time. Because of the high levels of competitions in our schools, every parent wants the best of their children and for that reason, parents hire tutors to teach their children on holidays, over the weekends, and also on evenings.
This fact, therefore, means that the young students have virtually no time to sour search themselves about what they really want with their lives. Gap Year, therefore, gives students an opportunity to reflect about the meaning and the purpose of their lives. As a result of having time to reflect and discern on the purpose and the goals of one`s life, the students who undertake Gap Year have an opportunity to reflect about their careers and to either change their career, after careful discernment, or continue with the career of their choice. Gap Year experience, therefore, is quite important in self-discovery (Fitzsimmons, McGrath, and Ducey, n.pg).
My own experience has taught me that Gap Year is indeed quite important in self- discovery. My friend decided to join Catholic Seminary and to study for priesthood after undertaking a Gap Year and spending six months in Cambodia with his uncle who is a missionary there. He told me that Gap Year helped him a great deal in discovering his true calling in life, the Gap Year experience gave him an opportunity to reflect about his life and to ultimately change his career, prior to undertaking the Gap Year, he had all along aspired to become a teacher.
Another advantage of Gap Year is that it offers the young students an opportunity to rest before joining college or university. As we have already seen, modern school life is characterized by demanding academic works; rarely do students find time to rest. This fact, therefore, shows that giving the high school graduate time to rest and to be with their families before joining colleges is quite important. Lack of Gap Year can lead to burn out due to the pressure of academic works in school. Giving students time to rest before joining colleges, also, re-ignites a sense of curiosity for learning (American Gap Association, web.).
Failure to give high school graduates enough time to rest before joining can, therefore, be counter- productive because of the disadvantages that come with burnout. For instance, burnout can lead to abuse of drugs as the overburdened students seek solace in various types of illegal drugs (Fitzsimmons, McGrath, and Ducey, n.pg). Failing to give recommend Gap Year for our children, therefore, is risking the students` lives.
Another main reason why Gap Year should be recommended for our children is that Gap Year gives the young students an opportunity to have hands-on experience of various types of work. Unlike the many theories that are taught in classroom, Gap Year gives the students an opportunity to work with their own hands and to have experience of actual work as opposed to theories that they learn in class.
Some of the tasks carried out in Gap Year, especially in volunteering services, are mainly manual work such as cleaning, working in the Garden, or even feeding the livestock. These experiences are quite humbling and they help one to appreciate the value of manual or menial tasks in life (American Gap Association, web). This fact, therefore, shows that Gap Year experience is an integral part of the holistic development of the learners.
Another reason why Gap Year should be recommended for the Young students is that it enhances one`s career; Gap Year have often been termed as a “great resume builder" (The Gap Year, web). This is because the recommendations that one gets after undertaking a Gap Year, either in a voluntary organisation or in a salaried work, can easily help one to secure job somewhere else. This is because, as we have already seen, Gap Year experience gives one hands-on experience, and the employees are interested more with practical skills, more than theoretical skills. For this reason, taking a Gap Year should never be viewed as a waste of time in regard to the advancement in one`s career.
Gap Year also gives the students a chance to work and to earn their own money that can help them in colleges. This is particularly important for the students who hail from poor families. Rather than joining college immediately after completing High School, students can work for some time and earn money that will ease their financial constraints while in school, this will relieve the parents of the high financial burden that they have in financing all the needs of the students in colleges. For this reason, Gap Year should be recommended for all the young students after graduating from High School.
Having looked at the main reasons why Gap Year should be recommended and made into a policy by the education policy makers, let us look at the main argument advanced by the opponents of Gap Year.
The main argument advanced against Gap Year is the argument that undertaking a Gap Year can make one to lose study morale, leading ultimately to a refusal to go to college by the young High School leaver. The proponents of this view argue that undertaking Gap Year can, actually, disorient one from studies and academic life (The Disadvantages of a Gap Year after College, web.). With the school life being so demanding and boring, and the life outside school being more enjoyable and less demanding, it is likely that those who part in Gap Year may loathe the demanding school life in preference for the less demanding and enjoyable life outside school.
This is especially the case with the students who do salaried jobs in the Gap Year; such students are likely to be lured into discontinuing with their studies by money and the comforts that come with it. The proponents of this view, therefore, contend that instead of subjecting the young High School graduates to such a dangerous risk, it is better for the High School graduates to join colleges and universities straight from High School.
A critical look at the above argument against Gap Year shows that the argument is flawed and incorrect. This is because, first, with a properly structured program for the Gap Year, it is quite unlikely that the young students will lose the morale for studies. Gap Year does not mean that students are given absolute freedom to do whatever they want. On the contrary, Gap Year should be well structured to ensure that the students are always engaged in some constructive activities.
Students can even take simple courses like learning a new language while in Gap Year. With a well-structured Gap Year program, the students` morale for studies will be intensified and re-ignited, contrary to the claim made the opponents of Gap Year. Secondly, although money of course can lure one into deciding not to continue with the studies, it is possible also for the money to encourage one to go to school so as to be able to earn more money. It is actually because of the desire to earn more money that we see many employed people enrolling for the Masters and the PhD degree programs.
For that reason, the risk of losing morale for studies because of money is quite minimal, and with good counselling, even the small number of students who are tempted by money to discontinue with their studies will be helped to see sense in going to college so that they could be able to earn more money. For that reason, this argument against Gap Year is flawed and does not offer sufficient evidence why High School graduates should not undertake Gap Year.
In conclusion, the advantages of Gap Year are numerous and far outweigh the presumed disadvantages of undertaking Gap Year. Undertaking Gap Year actually has no disadvantages. A critical look at the reasoning behind the so called disadvantages of Gap Year shows that the reasoning is based on false premises. For that reason, Gap Year should be recommended for all the High School graduates.
