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Taking
gap year - what are the options?
14 August 2008
You've got your A Level results, you've confirmed your place at university, now what to do? Are you thinking about taking a gap year? Do you want to know what's involved, what you could and how it will fit around going to university? Gap year expert Susan Griffiths tells you everything you need to know to make the most of the trip of your lifetime.
Susan Griffith
Extract from Part 1 - Planning your gap year
DECIDING WHEN TO TAKE YOUR GAP YEAR
There are good arguments for taking a gap year before university and after university - and a few lucky people take both. After A-levels many students are utterly sick of exams and books and timetables. They want to experience Life with a capital L and freedom and independence. University can satisfy these cravings up to a point, but to head off to work in a Canadian ski resort, study Spanish in Ecuador, backpack round India, pick apples in Tasmania or volunteer at a village school in Tanzania guarantees a complete break from anything that has gone before.
Straight out of School
It is not at all unusual for young people in their A-level year to feel fairly unfocused about their future. A huge number follow the assumption of family and peers that they will go to university but may not have a clear idea what to study or where to study it. Many 18-year-olds simply do not feel ready for university, and when they do drift off to a place of higher learning, possibly having chosen according to the pin-in-a-map technique, they may not have the motivation to last the distance. The obvious answer to this quandary is to take some time out, to give themselves an opportunity for new experiences and a chance for preferences and interests to develop. Most wet-behind-the-ears school leavers have very limited horizons and a year of travel, volunteering and work is sure to expand them. A wider acquaintance of the world can be academically beneficial and arguably almost essential for lots of courses like politics, media and communications, modern languages, art history and so on.
A specially targeted gap year project will always impress, such as living and doing a course in a country whose language they want to study, or touring the ancient sites of the eastern Mediterranean if they want to study classical civilisation. But even a ‘bog standard' gap year of working and travelling can do wonders for enhancing self-confidence and independence of thought. Anyone who has managed to rub along with a group of strangers on an Arctic expedition or struck up an acquaintance with people of many nationalities while backpacking in Europe or further afield is bound to feel less timid about tackling their university's freshers' week. Entering the canteen at uni for the first time can hold few terrors for someone who has stepped out of Bangkok or Delhi Airport and found their way around an alien city. Anyone who has experienced a homestay with a Mexican or Thai family will have learned a great deal about tolerance and respect for difference. Those who have backpacked on a shoestring and stayed in a few dives will not be too shocked by the declining standards of hygiene in their hall of residence.
Just as many 18-year-olds may not have a well worked out pathway to the future, so they may not have much of a clue about what they want to do or where to go in their gap year. As a result many are attracted to the whirlwind kind of travel, to give them a snapshot of many different places so they can sort out where they would like to spend more time on a future trip. InterRailing is a classic gap year choice, and almost everybody wishes that they had spent longer in a few places rather than dashing from station to station, hostel to hostel. On the whole no one goes InterRailing twice, but it serves a valuable function in giving first-time travellers a taste of what the world (or at least Europe) holds.
Straight out of University
If a student who has just finished A-levels feels in dire need of a major break, how much more has the university graduate deserved it. They may have partied in their first year, but the final year is usually an intense scramble to finish dissertations or complete scientific projects and of course to sit final exams. Many feel that they have really earned a break from all this pressure and obligation, and the idea of subjecting themselves to a round of job interviews fills them with dismay.
Because they are three years older and wiser, and have been exposed to many more ideas and possibilities, they may have a clearer idea of what aspects of the world they want to explore (see case study below). Their choice of gap year destination and/or activity might grow organically out of subjects that have grabbed their attention at university. They have already learned the art of fending for themselves, and will not worry as much about suffering from homesickness as they might have done when they were 18. Solo travel may not hold the terrors it would have when they were younger; on the other hand they might be in a relationship that they are reluctant to jeopardise. All these contingencies are very personal and there is no right or wrong time to fly the coop.
One of the disadvantages of the post-university gap year is that many new graduates are oppressed by student debt and find it difficult to justify to themselves jetting off to spend yet more money. Unlike the young gapper who has a deferred place at university already sorted, the graduate gapper has no such fixed structure and may feel uneasy at the prospect of returning to the job market after a long break after uni.
Richard Griffiths left university with a vague interest in the environment, an interest that his gap years eventually crystallised into a life choice. In fact his gap year travels and interning were instrumental in his eventually finding a proper job in this field:
'After uni I went travelling in India and South-East Asia for a year, and on to Australia where I worked in Sydney as a charity fundraiser/campaigner for the Wilderness Society. That experience, previous inclinations, and the environmental wonders/destruction I had seen on my travels cemented in my mind that I wanted to work in the environmental sector. Thus, after another nine months (during which I continued to work in campaigning, and also worked as a PADI diver-master intern with the University of New South Wales), I headed home and looked for work in the environmental sector. Jobs were hard to come by given demand and supply (and my only having enthusiasm and a BA, with little direct experience), and thus I looked for internships. I found one in the Earthwatch office in Oxford. After working as their marketing intern for four months, I was offered a permanent (training) post, then a full-on post. Working as an intern at Earthwatch was a brilliant way to spend three months of a gap year, and with hindsight it's definitely something I'd like to have done earlier. It's a great first step on a very hard-to-reach ladder. Since September I have been working for DEFRA as a policy adviser on UK climate change (having first gone back to university to do a masters in environmental change and policy).'
