A year away from schooling. A year to evaluate your future. A a year to stop time. A year to discover who you are and who you want to be.
The growing trend of taking a gap year offers just this, a break from the traditional entrance into college in exchange for a look into the real world.
More and more U.S. high school students are taking time before college to explore themselves and their environment. This gap between the stresses of senior year and the infamous freshman year of college is most commonly used for ventures such as travel, volunteer work, jobs, or simply a year to assess your life in front to the TV.
Taking a gap year can be either a positive break from the stresses of school or a negative downfall into a standstill from further education.
Foothill student teacher Faraazz Qureshi, who is teaching this semester with math instructor Cat Gaspard, took six months off after graduating from high school. At the time, he felt overwhelmed by the thought of life after high school. After six months off, he decided he would apply to a community college, hoping that at that point he would have a clear vision of who he wanted to be.
“Taking time off allowed me to mature past the high school point of just trying to get by, I was now taking classes for me,” said Qureshi.
After two years of community college, Qureshi attended the University of California, Riverside, and is now enrolled in a masters program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is studying education in math and biology.
Overall, he believes that his experience with taking a gap year allowed him to “figure out what I can do for myself.”
Though this outcome is evident among students who take a gap year after high school, there is still speculation on how many students further their education after a gap year is completed.
To ensure that an education is still pursued after taking time off, some colleges such as Amherst College, Princeton University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have policies allowing students to postpone admission in order to enjoy the luxury of a gap year. Students are admitted and then postpone their start date.
Some organizations that provide gap year services are Leap Now, Thinking Beyond Borders, and the Council on International Educational Exchange.
Foothill junior Keanna Sandoval is planning on pursuing a gap year internship with City Church Interns after high school. Sandoval had dreams of going straight to a four-year college but later found that a gap year would be in her best interest.
“I want to figure out who I am as a person before going into college, at this point in my life I am just not ready.”
With all the work and stresses of high school going straight to a four-year college may not be the best idea for our over worked brain cells. Sometimes it is best to step back and take some time off.
As high school students the importance of going straight to a four-year college is constantly being presented as the only way to ensure a life of success.
However Sandoval thinks otherwise.
“I have found that self-evaluation is the key to my future success,” she said.
