Is a Gap Year truly beneficial? Graduating high school is a giant milestone in a young 17 or 18 year old’s life; with 12 years of school under their belt these kids are faced with a decision. This decision is something they have been preparing for over a year or two, and the decision is whether they will or will not be attending college. With today’s American culture and economy these students feel a lot of pressure to continue their education even if they are not completely ready for the daunting amount of investment (money, and self) it will take. Freshly graduated from high school many young adults may not know exactly which direction they want to go in terms of a career. This is where the “gap year” can be beneficial. The definition of
…show more content…
Like the programs listed above became an innovation for the author of the New York Times article “Don’t Send Your Kids to College. At Least Not Yet.” Abigail Falik, founded Global Citizen of the Year an “award-winning, non-profit social enterprise on a mission to make it normal to choose a bridge year; an experience after high school that builds self-awareness, global skills, and grit – the foundations for success in college and beyond.” (“About Us”) In Falik’s article she expresses how having a gap year allows students to become refreshed and focused for their future academic endeavors. With harsh statistic like “one-third of college freshmen don’t return for a second year. Kids take about six years to complete a degree, and only 9 percent of students from low-income backgrounds will have a degree by the time they turn 24”(Falik), she explains how this could be a systematic flaw. Too many high school graduates go straight to college without knowing what they want as a future career or even if college is indeed for …show more content…
Furthermore, although there were concerns over the self-report nature of university attainment, results here suggest that those who took a gap-year may have been less likely to drop-out of university and more likely to be enrolled in university had they instead entered university directly (Parker, Thoemmes, Duineveld, and Salmela-Aro).
The statistics shown above can be used for the opposing side of the gap year when it states that there is no significant difference between career, future, and life satisfaction, but the students that have taken a year or more off are more likely to be consistent with the university they attend.
In the study “Goal construction, reconstruction and depressive symptoms in a life-span context: The transition from school to work.” done by Jari-Erik Nurmi* and Katariina Salmela-Aro they examined that post-high school graduates that choose to do a gap year suffer since they are going against the norm of society to continue with higher education. “The transition from high school is an age graded task in that timing of the transition is set by cultural norms and structures” (Nurmi & Salmela-Aro, in Parker, Thoemmes, Duineveld, & Salmela-Aro). They also find that a lot of academic success is dependent on ones ability to cope with
Like the programs listed above became an innovation for the author of the New York Times article “Don’t Send Your Kids to College. At Least Not Yet.” Abigail Falik, founded Global Citizen of the Year an “award-winning, non-profit social enterprise on a mission to make it normal to choose a bridge year; an experience after high school that builds self-awareness, global skills, and grit – the foundations for success in college and beyond.” (“About Us”) In Falik’s article she expresses how having a gap year allows students to become refreshed and focused for their future academic endeavors. With harsh statistic like “one-third of college freshmen don’t return for a second year. Kids take about six years to complete a degree, and only 9 percent of students from low-income backgrounds will have a degree by the time they turn 24”(Falik), she explains how this could be a systematic flaw. Too many high school graduates go straight to college without knowing what they want as a future career or even if college is indeed for …show more content…
Furthermore, although there were concerns over the self-report nature of university attainment, results here suggest that those who took a gap-year may have been less likely to drop-out of university and more likely to be enrolled in university had they instead entered university directly (Parker, Thoemmes, Duineveld, and Salmela-Aro).
The statistics shown above can be used for the opposing side of the gap year when it states that there is no significant difference between career, future, and life satisfaction, but the students that have taken a year or more off are more likely to be consistent with the university they attend.
In the study “Goal construction, reconstruction and depressive symptoms in a life-span context: The transition from school to work.” done by Jari-Erik Nurmi* and Katariina Salmela-Aro they examined that post-high school graduates that choose to do a gap year suffer since they are going against the norm of society to continue with higher education. “The transition from high school is an age graded task in that timing of the transition is set by cultural norms and structures” (Nurmi & Salmela-Aro, in Parker, Thoemmes, Duineveld, & Salmela-Aro). They also find that a lot of academic success is dependent on ones ability to cope with