Fall Into the Gap: 7 Great reasons to take a Gap Year (part 1)
If you’ve never heard of a “gap year” before, you need to know that it has nothing to do with wearing khaki’s and sweater vests.
A gap year has nothing to do with clothing. It’s a year that you take off from school (usually after finishing high school before entering college/university/the workforce) to travel, gain experience and meet new people.
Gap years have been popular in Europe for a while but they’re just now becoming more accepted in North America. Some people use this year to volunteer, some work to earn money, some people spend the whole time backpacking and others use it as a time to write and take pictures or all of the above.
I am a HUGE fan of gap years (such a HUGE fan that I have to write HUGE in CAPS). I personally took a gap year to live and work in Japan and that decision completely changed the direction of my career/life and has brought me to where I am today. I learned so much while on my gap year adventure. I met a ton of new people and had too many crazy experiences to count.
You may be one of those people coming up to the end of high school wondering what’s next or you may be thinking about taking a gap year but still haven’t decided. I want to give you 7 really good reasons to take a gap year.
1. Have Experiences
One of the awesome reasons to take a gap year is to have experiences that are completely different from the majority of your friends back home. They will have things like “going to another party” in their Facebook status, while you will get to have stuff like, “just got back from an African safari. Lion count: 7, Elephants: 12, Scared Americans: 1” or “finally finished the schoolhouse in Nepal. It feels good to make a difference”.
These experiences have the power to transform the path of your life. They can shape the direction of your career and education and if nothing else, they will give you the best stories to tell at family dinners and parties.
My gap year stories have become a huge (no caps needed) part of my message when I am speaking to teens all over North America.
2. Decompress
We spend like 15-20 years straight, in school. It’s so easy to get caught up in the world of education that we forget why we are there. Why do you want to go to university/college? Why are you choosing your major? What will you do with your degree/diploma when you graduate?
I think it’s crazy to try and choose a university/college major or career path without having experienced something other than school for your entire life.
It’s like going into a restaurant and ordering from a menu printed in a different language, with no pictures. You basically have to point, smile and hope that you get something that you like, without ever seeing it or tasting it first.
A gap year is the perfect time to take a well-deserved break from school and clear you head. It’s a perfect time to taste-test some of the possibilities for your future. It’s an ideal time get refocused on what you want to do and more importantly, why you want to do it.
Take some time to yourself, away from your friends, family and teachers (who are all probably pressuring you to do something different) and decompress. You have worked hard for the past 12-13 years, don’t you think you owe it to yourself to take some time and figure out what you really want to do?
“But Ryan, if I take a year off, I will be a year behind everybody else?”
What’s the rush? Is it a race? Besides, did you know that half of first-year university/college students change their major at least once? Racing into university/college isn’t always the best decision and wasting a year there is a pretty expensive decision.
And if that’s not good enough, a recent report from Stats Canada found that students who take a gap year don’t face a disadvantage when it comes time to get a job. (I believe it actually helps them)
Some schools will even put your University/College acceptance on hold for a year while you travel the globe.
3. Meet New People
I hate to say this, but sometimes your friends are your friends just because they’re there. It’s easy to be friends with the girl next door or guy on your street because it’s convenient. Also, the people around you are so much like you. They probably share most of the same stories and background as you.
By taking a gap year, you will meet so many new people. Some will make you want to spit in their food (but you won’t) and others will become friends for life.
You will get to hear about completely different ways of life and hear how other people have grown up. You will get to learn about different people, cultures and traditions. You will get to be exposed to people who have grown up on the other side of the planet but have more in common with you than the guy who you’ve been playing Xbox with for the past 7 years.
While on my gap year, I met so many people who have become great friends. We keep touch using Skype, MSN Messenger, Facebook and email. One of the guys I met while living in Japan has become one of my best friends and we are planning a Round-the-World trip for 2011 together.
Get out and meet some new people. Learn about new cultures and make some new friends. Keep your old friends, but make some new ones.
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 10:04 am and is filed under Get Lost, Get Found, Make Your Own Lunch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
