Our generation doesn’t know how to live in the present. We are always focused on the next step. Our next task, the next day, even what happens 20 years down the road.
As students, we have been groomed to keep our eyes on the horizon. We don’t like doing homework, but we spend our nights roughing through it so that in a couple of years we will get into a good school, land a good career and live happily ever after. We are concentrating so much on the end product that we are missing the things that happen in between. It is like we are walking through the jungle with a pair of binoculars glued to our face always trying to get a somewhat hazy glimpse into what is up ahead and we are missing all the excitement and beauty of what is right around us.
Up until graduation, our lives have been relatively plowed for us. We bummed around for a few years as we learned how to walk, talk and understand the world around us. Then, when we hit a certain age, we were enrolled in school, without any consent or discussion from us. We were placed on the train of education, set on auto-pilot, trucking through elementary school, middle school and high school without any hesitation. But now here we are. Senior year, on the last leg of our journey before we hit a junction and need to find a connection of our own.
Unfortunately, I don’t think enough kids take advantage of this time in our lives. It is the first time we are really given control. What is our next step? Too many kids overlook their options and head straight from high school to college without giving it a second thought.
One option worth exploring is taking a gap year — a solid year between the graduation of high school and the start of college. Gap years allow kids to travel and see the world, or hook-up with various programs such as AmeriCorp and USA Gap Year Fairs which focus on the education, service and personal growth of a student.
Gap years tend to have an air of laziness about them. People seem to think that a gap year is basically the polite way of saying ‘bumming around and partying before I take responsibility in my life.’ But in reality, gap years can be well needed adjusters, spent primarily in work or internship, giving students a chance to get out into the real world and figure out what they want to do or if their major is right for them before handing over a large tuition.
For many high school students who are unsure what they want to do or major in, going straight from high school to college could be a massive waste of money as they take various courses that won’t count toward their job selection.
For over a decade we have been working toward a future we may not fully understand or even want. When that day comes when we are lying on our deathbed, our diploma and salary and corner office won’t be the things that will matter. What will matter are the people we meet and the relationships and friendships that we had along the way.
Gap years are time we can revert back within ourselves and enjoy a little bit of simple living. They don’t have to be expensive, while the average gap year costs between $10,000 and $12,000, students, (know as “Gappers”), can apply for financial aid through Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or through individual study-abroad programs.
Many colleges, including Harvard, Princeton and New York University, encourage incoming students to defer admission for one year to take a gap year within their acceptance letters. In 2009, Princeton University created it’s Bridge-Year program, which allows select students to postpone admission to spend nine months of university-sponsored service time at one of Princeton’s four international locations. Many private colleges are now hosting “gap year fairs,” that let students explore all their options in how to fill and finance their gap years.
Students are often hesitant to take a year off school and return to a class of much younger pupils than themselves, however Gappers and college counselors both agree that since college is much less age-oriented, it makes virtually no difference. A gap year can also be considered between undergraduate and graduate school.
As soon as we leave college we will be thrown into the “real world” of work and obligation and we may never get another chance to disappear from the world for a little while. We are tied down at school. We can’t just pick up and leave when we want to. We have given school nine months of our (nearly) undivided attention every year for the majority of our lives so far. School consumes our lives. We schedule around it and it has priority over nearly everything else, the same way our job will as soon as we graduate college. So we may as well take one blissful year while we still can to live for the moment.
Education is extremely important. It is a keystone to success. I am a strong believer that all kids should have access to both a high school and college education. Yes, it would be nice to live on the coast of somewhere beautiful farming and working just to live within our means but for most of us that is not in the cards. I think it is important to get a great education and be both driven and devoted throughout our college years in pursuit of our designated dream job. However, I think it is extremely beneficial to break up what they call the “crib-to-college-to-cubical-to-coffin syndrome” at least once in our lives and live spontaneously in the moment.
It is an experience that can not only motivate you through college but an experience that will live with you the rest of your life. I don’t want to look back 30 years from now and question why I am where I am and whether it was all worth it. A gap year is a time to think. To press pause on the pressure and stress of life. To give yourself some perspective. Get out of the bubble you’ve been cocooned inside all these years. Not just see but actually look at the world around you and give yourself perspective.
A gap year is a great opportunity to jump off the train for just a moment, a chance to put the binoculars down and just live within our means for a short period of time. It’s our chance to explore the world in the present tense.
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