The Concept of A Gap Year

To describe the gap year as simply a year that a high school graduates takes off to goof around before going on to higher education is a complete misconception. It's far more than that, even if it does usually give the young person a mental break before their next stage in life. It often involves either traveling or gaining either paid or unpaid work experience, meaning the grad is acquiring new skills, as well as knowledge of a whole different kind.

One of the reasons a student might plan to take a year or more before going on to further education is simply to have a chance to mature. Once they hit the institutions of higher learning, they'll be expected to interact as adults, after all. But a gap year also gives them the change to learn wider viewpoints and perhaps experience other cultures. Their studies are bound to be enriched by this.

So prevalent has this practice become that entire organizations have sprung up to help facilitate choices that will most benefit him or her. Everyone from travel agencies to governments seem to have set up similar opportunities. Some countries have arranged exchange programs, and while these may not always have been designed explicitly for gap year work or travel, many who take this year off take advantage of these programs. Australia has the most extensive arrangements, having created working holiday exchanges with countries like Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Norway, Taiwan, and many others. This year can be a youth travel experience that shapes what the young person does for the rest of their life.

Not every culture encourages students to take gap years, however. Denmark, for example, actively discourages the phenomenon, feeling that their society and economy require students to get into the work force more quickly. So the country pushes them toward continuing with their educational pursuits instead. Nor is the practice very common in the United States, although it is increasing slowly.

However, the lessons learned by students when they take this break will probably be valuable to them for the rest of their lives. They'll return to their higher learning as more mature, adult people, probably with a more realistic and understanding view of the wider world than they'd ever had before. Taking that gap year might turn out to be the best thing they could have done for themselves.

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