How a Gap Year Can Align With Your Career Goals by Adam Salzman, Adventure EXP It’s incredibly exciting to have the opportunity to take on a gap year, but even more thrilling is knowing it aligns with your personal and professional goals. Choosing an alternative path from the normal status quo of high school, college, and internships is a wonderful opportunity to challenge yourself in a way that others won’t experience, but it can be daunting. It goes deeper than just having an amazing experience. It’s a great first step in your career, but also for future opportunities, whether travel…
Gap Year Benefits
Raising Gap Year Alumni Voices by Jane Sarouhan of J2Guides I have spent 25 years touting the benefits of taking a gap year. From school auditoriums, conference podiums, press panels and zoom rooms I have delivered anecdotes, data and laughter to thousands of people who are looking to understand both the options and outcomes of a well-designed gap year. I hear: “I am afraid my child won’t go to college if they take a gap year.” And I reply: “In fact, 90% of gappers return to college after their gap year. And furthermore, gap year students on average graduate college…
Applying Gap Year Lessons to Life Post Gap-Year by Eva Walker Not many people are able to really be present in the moments of their lives that matter, the simple ones that actually shape their path. Many people only get to see their growth in an existential rearview mirror, having passed by some of their littlest but most formative turning points without even realizing it. When I set out on my gap year, determined to find out where my need for adventure could take me, I inadvertently learned how to be present in my most important days while they were…
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Gap Year: The Active Learning Process by Elizabeth Bezark Ever since I started curating and editing the GYA blog, the rest of the GYA team has heard time and time again my obsession with the active voice. Action verbs produce strong writing. If my bio on the GYA website didn’t focus on my work in global education and Fair Trade Learning, it would express my strong desire to make the world a better-written place. What does this have to do with experiential education? Keep reading, you’ll see! The terms experiential education, comfort…
Earning College Credit on a Gap Year by Vanessa Zuidema The COVID-19 pandemic served to exacerbate and expose existing fissures in our higher education system. Costs are skyrocketing, while the financial burden on students and recent grads has become overwhelming. In 2020 and 2021, the number of students opting to take a gap year increased significantly compared to previous years. For some this was the chosen path: a journey they planned for some time with family and school counselors. For others, however, it was a default reaction to a year of lockdowns and “zoom school.” A year in which the…
The Tee on Taking a Gap Year for Golf by Jordan Fuller Many people aren’t ready to commit to over $100,000 in student loans for a degree they’re not sure they want at a college they’re not 100% sure they want to attend. Whether it’s a love of sports and desire to play collegiately (or even professionally), or desire for great life experience, a gap year between high school and college can provide an incredibly effective way to mentally and physically develop. I spent my gap year trying to develop my golf skills to see if I could conceivably go…
My Experience as a Black Participant-Turned-Leader of the Rising Earth Immersion by Psalms White, originally published under the same title on the Eco Institute Blog. Posted with permission from the author. As I do believe in a higher power, it feels like divine intervention that my path has converged with the Eco-Institute’s —a hidden gem just 20 minutes from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I received my undergraduate degree in May of 2020. While I was in college, I had no knowledge this space even existed before my friend Abbey participated in the Eco-Institute’s Rising Earth…
Guidance Counselors Should Reconsider the Gap Year By Robin Pendoley Ed.M, originally published on Psychology Today website. Re-published with permission from author. It happened again yesterday. A mother of a gap year student shared — raved, actually — about how important the experience has been for her daughter. She was a strong student in high school, but she didn’t love learning anymore and didn’t have the sense of purpose and direction she was going to need to succeed in college. The gap year program she participated in helped her find a passion for learning and is sending her into higher education knowing…
Letter to GYA Dancers by Dominique Robinson, Director of Pizarts Dance Gap Year When I decided to pursue a career in dance, I wasn’t aware of the many avenues I could explore. In today’s culture we as artists have an unlimited amount of resources that inspire and educate us to absorb, process, and express our individuality. Even so, all the information out there can often paralyze dancers, sending them into a whirlwind of confusion: Where do I fit in? What am I trying to say? How do I brand myself? Why do I need to brand myself? The questions that…
Gap Year Research Consortium at Colorado College by Bob Clagett IMAGE from Colorado College Anyone who has taken a gap year or is somehow connected to the gap year community is familiar with the myriad benefits of doing so. Students who take a gap year between high school and college are almost invariably more mature, more focused, and more likely to take advantage of the full undergraduate experience from the start of their first year. It has also almost become conventional wisdom that doing something different for a semester or a year can be liberating from the lock-step mentality with…