Gap years, do they help or hurt you?
Throughout any college students’ time at school, they may find themselves questioning everything from their major choice to their motivation to continue to their health, both physically and mentally. From a young age, we are taught that college should take four years, and if one was to throw in a gap year at anytime throughout those four years, it adds time to the college experience for that individual.
So why take a gap year? Why would anyone want to spend more time in school than he or she has to? According to a 2015 National Alumni survey, some of the top answers as to why people chose to take a year off were to gain life experiences and grow personally, to travel and experience other cultures, and to take a break from the academic track.
If you think about it, a person goes to school from the age of 4 until the age of 18. That is 14 years of education. If that person chooses to go on to get a bachelor or master’s degree, that number just increases. Taking a year off to explore oneself – what she or he likes and who he or she is- allows the individual to figure out what it is he or she truly wants his or her future to look like. The person also considers what the path will look like to getting there. Going to school full-time and often working part-time on the side doesn’t allow for much exploration or self-discovery.
Taking a year off can also address a huge problem in America right now, mental health. Roughly one third of students having difficulty performing academically due to depression and overwhelming anxiety. The recent pandemic that struck the world shifted the education system to entirely online for over a year. The toll on students having to learn virtually was noticeable, and professors had to re-frame their classes to fit the new classrooms they would be teaching in, while simultaneously dealing with immunodeficiencies in themselves and/or family members and trying to manage the stress and anxiety from the changes. The result is that gap years now should be more normalized than ever. Taking time off to prioritize one’s health, whether it be physical or mental, is a brave choice, but society has made it a difficult choice.
The decision of taking time off comes with an overwhelming wave of comments and questions. They range from “Good luck going back” to “What are you gonna do now?” From my own experience, there were questions of what my future plan was, as if taking time off insinuated that I was never going back. This was very discouraging, and for me, it lead to self- doubt and conflict in the process of deciding to take a break or not.
The gap-year experience can greatly impact one’s growth as an individual and citizen of society. It can allow for delayed healing to take place. Likewise, it can allow someone to find new perspectives and roles in society that she or he hadn’t considered prior to the decision. Young adults deserve the time and space in society to take care of themselves without negative feedback of whether they will or won’t go back to school. Young adults deserve to decide for themselves what their future looks like and the time it takes to figure that out.
Resource https://www.thesca.org/connect/blog/gap-years-what-does-research-say