Author’s note: this is a refurbished older post. It’s still relevant and I’m on vacation.

I’m managing to keep my crankiness under control regarding the new-found commonness of the term gap year. Where in the hell were those two words when I was a senior in high school? On another continent, that’s where. Young non-American adults are apparently encouraged (sometimes even expected) to take a gap year between high school and college. How nice for them.

In the land I am from, saying “I’m taking a year off before I start college,” means one of two things: either you’re a slacker and have no direction and do not wish to succeed in life, or your parents aren’t going to foot the tuition bill and you need a little time to think before you leap into the Student Loan Chasm of Doom.

So, clearly, as I was a spoiled girl (college paid for) with so much direction and focus it was coming out of my bottom (if you can convince yourself that you have a plan, then you can convince your family, too. It’s called suspension of disbelief. Sometimes it’s also called bull****), I went directly from high school to Cal State and did not pass Go. I took my break in the middle of my undergrad degree.

When I took my gap year, it was not referred to as such. It wasn’t even viewed as such. It was viewed by my family as “The year Alexa didn’t apply to medical school.” No, I was never planning on applying to medical school. Which explains my surprise upon learning that this was the plan as my grandparents saw it. So I didn’t see how taking part of a year off to work and travel was in any way going to interrupt my here-to-for unmentioned medical school application process.

Logic is not a language that translates well between generations, so my grandparents and I had to agree to not get along for a while. They came on board with the Europe Trip when my foster brother and I started sending very entertaining letters home. On paper. (It was like a blog, except that it was 1996 and it required postage stamps.)

Anyway, taking a gap year is normal if you grew up not in the U.S. And, oh happy day for everyone who isn’t me, parents across America are starting to accept the whole idea of their kiddos taking a year off between high school and college. I’m still reeling from the whole idea that my Year of Flake is suddenly a socially acceptable Gap Year. I‘m trying to recover from the reel and argue absolutely for taking a gap year if you are so inclined.

For the record, it was the best year ever. What do you learn when you’re not in school? A lot if your eyes are open. Don’t get me wrong, I love being in school, I love learning, and I’m better at being a student than I am at most other ventures. To be fair, I’ve spent more years as a student than I have at everything else except, you know, breathing. But sometimes you need to look up and see what’s happening outside the education furrow / rut you’ve been in for so long.

If you stare at books and the insides of lecture halls for years on end, eventually it all starts to blur together into one long road of memorization and red tape, punctuated by especially brutal finals or papers or lab write-ups. Looking at real life for even a few months gives you something solid to spackle your book knowledge to. Context and objectivity are pretty interesting animals. Who you are and how the world works when you’re in high school are changed completely when you hit college. The same goes for you in school vs. you in the world. Or you in the U.S. vs. you traveling across another continent.

And, yes, of course I grew, I learned, I came back a better version of me. I honestly don’t know how someone could do something different and manage to not learn from it. So I won’t go into the depth or the amazingness of the pre- vs. post-Gap Year Alexa. It was good, it was worth it, I highly recommend stepping outside of your comfort zone and seeing the world and yourself from another angle. And, as with everything in life, you’ll get out of it what you put into it. That’s right. Also, there’s no free lunch. I’m going to start my own inspirational poster company.

You probably shouldn’t go into it thinking that your gap year will be easier than school. If you do it right, it’ll probably be more fun, but not so much with the easy. I worked to earn the money for the trip. (That’s how I learned the valuable “food service sucks” lesson). I planned the trip (in cahoots with my foster brother). I had to work out traveling with another human (foster brother who may actually be an alien) and maintaining a good friendship.

If the red tape wasn’t properly dealt with prior to departure, I wasn’t going to be allowed to leave the country. If I pissed off a Turkish train conductor in Istanbul, I was the one who was going to be escorted from the train station before I ended up in a Turkish prison (the train guy started it). If all Americans and British passengers were going to be pulled off a Yugoslavian (it was 1996 and still Yugoslavia) train in the middle of nowhere and questioned (not in English) at gunpoint, I was the one who had to figure out how not to get shot. See? All kinds of learning experiences.

My “gap year” (which was less than a year) was amazing. It’s right in there with my senior year at Evergreen as far as how much I learned and how stupidly happy I was. I worked my ass off in both instances and am completely proud of what I managed to pull off.

I’m pro gap year, absolutely. But since I did it in the middle of my college career, and I also did it before it was cool, you might require a few more convincing (read: adult) arguments for taking some time off. Below are three adult arguments for taking a gap year in case you need some back-up logic to convince your parents (or yourself) that we learn better and grow more completely outside of the classroom box, and one excellent list of what to do and how to do it right (I had no big plan, I was flying strictly by the seat of my pants). And one really funny gap year article which you should not show your parents as it’s not that far off the mark.

Further Reading:

The Gap Year Advantage: Helping Your Child Benefit from Time Off Before or During College

How to Become a World Citizen, Before Going to College

‘Gap year’ before college gives grads valuable life experience

A Meaningful Detour: The Gap Year

Take this job and shove it…I’m taking a gap year

TransitionsAbroad.com: The Gap Year

Mind the Gap

Excellent battle plan, including websites and a book list

The hilarious gap-year emails that never reassure parents

Posted by Alexa Harrington