Education Week Analysis

Going to college requires careful thinking which not all teenagers have completely figured out how to do. “Gap Year: 5 benefits of Delaying College, By Peter Bamper, is an argumentative essay about the many benefits of taking a gap year before going to college from high school. This essay will explain why taking a gap year is highly beneficial for a student planning on going to college. Saving money is one of the most important benefits of taking a year off before college. According to the author, college tuition is not cheap but “waiting a year will help you and your family save money”.

Starting college as a Freshman is exciting; it is also unnerving. The comfort of everything I know is going to disappear and it will be time to grow up and face reality. However, reality isn’t doomed to be negative if I prepare for my future and

The transition from high school to college is a dynamic time in one’s life that parallels the change from childhood to adulthood. Both of these changes are dramatic and, as a result, feelings are difficult to put down into words. A messy combination of emotions fills the heart, surfacing in strange ways. Confident high school seniors go right back to the bottom of the chain when entering college as freshmen. These students start all over, just like entering grade school or high school for the first time. The move up from high school to college signals the switch from dependence to self-sufficiency. From a personal point of view, going through the experience of graduating high school and transferring to a residential college campus at STLCOP, made me realize I was no longer a kid and capable of making my own decisions.

Students should not be forced to attend college because there are other viable options like taking a year off. Also known as a “gap year” is a very viable option to new high school graduates. Giving them time to think about that you want to do for the rest of their life is a smart choice. Many people rush when thinking about their career and end up changing it later in their life. It is a good practice in life to always consider all your options before making a commitment. Furthermore, instead of taking a gap year there are other options to consider like joining the military.

You go three years of high school preparing for college and at the same time having fun. Until you are in your senior year of high school that’s when you realize and start asking your self what college do I want to go to? Or what college career I want to pursue? That’s when you notice you have but so little time to answer these questions. Me I’m in my last year of high school and I though I already knew what career I wanted to pursue, but its now that I notice that not even I know what I’m going to do with my life? All I’m sure of its that I’m going to graduate out of high school with a diploma and that I’m going to college. But what happens after that? What major did I study? Or where did I go to accomplish my goal?

It is that time of the year: the sun is finally coming out, people are buzzing out into the streets and students have high hopes for what the future holds for them. Students are bubbling with excitement over the change from grade school to high school and others high school to college. Just remember that little jolt of adrenaline and for most people relief when they have waited months for a piece of paper that defines the rest of the next four years of your life: socially and educationally. Within those few seconds, you did not face the realization of your peers that were hit with defeat and did not like what a piece of paper spelled out. You did not realize the other students, like you, who were not fortunate enough to live a life up to now

The addition of a year would allow students to have a better understanding and judgement of the workforce. In the added year, schools could give students work experience. This would allow them to realize how much effort is needed in order to sustain a job.

Year after year, the mind expands. And, those who wish to continue on with their education are most likely those that actually want a steady job or a career. Having to take off one year of studies, the brain would have to adapt to not learning information, but rather learning tactics. When returning to school, a lot of valuable information that was learned beforehand will be forgotten. Due to this, when these people take classes, they will fall behind. After just a summer, it is hard for me as a student, and also my peers to come back into school, to remember a lot of which we learned in the past school year. I can only imagine the gravity of taking an entire year off. They might as well go back to kindergarten. I understand many people take a few years off to go on missions for their churches and such, but in this, there is no

Little did they know that they could build many experiences by taking a year off before university starts. One of it is by gaining work experience. By working for a year, they can learn how to get along and socialize with others. This is a knowledge that cannot be found in books. Other than that, they can figure out their future. They can plan on which university to go and they can also decide on what course they should take. Studies have shown that a student, who takes a gap year, tends to be more focused and disciplined in

Many high school seniors claim to be burned out from excessive academic study by the time they graduate high school, and so jumping into a demanding intellectual environment such as college seems to them to be a daunting prospect. An excellent alternative to going to college immediately is for the student to take a gap year. A gap year is a year in between graduating from high school and entering college in which a student may learn and grow in ways they otherwise couldn’t if they were in a college classroom. M. L. Savickas explains this transition further in the book Career Development and Counseling: Putting Theory and Research to Work. “The transition represents an important opportunity to enact career goals, self-beliefs, and identities developed during schooling” (Savickas, 2005 pp. 42–70). Some may have apprehensions when determining if a gap year is beneficial for an individual and for society. Some could argue that an individual who takes a gap year will digress academically, or that a student who does not enroll immediately in college will not have the best chances of influencing and benefitting society. However, taking a gap year has been becoming increasingly popular recently, and is apparent in the study done in Australia; “In 1995 around 7% of high school graduates took a gap-year, 12% in 1998, 20% in 2003, and up to 22% of the

Another argument someone who is against gap years may make is that they are expensive, especially if you are looking to travel.

Many students come out of high school of knowledge of history, numbers, and words. They also come out of high school burnt out, tired, and bored. The idea of the gap year is for students to put off college to take time to refresh and figure out their life plans before starting to early and making mistakes (Danielle). Linda Lee writes in her article, “What’s the Rush? Why College Can Wait”, that the idea of gap year is supported by a few colleges such as Harvard and Princeton as well as some others, these colleges like the idea of gap year because they believe that it can help students get more experience to make a decision in what they want to do exactly and come back the

Young people can be exhausted after years of school and hard work and just need a break. Gap years are a chance to explore and learn new cultures, experience struggles and make life changing decisions and meet new people. It gives the young person a year to mature and grow up as they might have always had everything done for you. It gives them the chance to learn how to look after themself by learning how to cook and become independent. It can also help the person come to a conclusion on what you might want to do in life, college or university as it gives them a year to take time to think about what they love and would maybe like to do in the future. A gap year will also help them in the future as they might come across something while volunteering or working abroad what they never knew they

“Gap year” is a common word for a lot of college students because taking a one-year break between high school and college is a good choice for the high school graduates. More and more high school graduates want to take a one-year break before they go to the college. In fact, some people agree that taking a one-year break is good for those students who just graduated from high school because they can learn different life skills and new things between college and high school. Other people think that taking a one-year break is bad for high school graduates because they will forget some knowledge that they learned in high school. In my opinion, I think that taking a one-year break (gap year) is beneficial for the high school graduates.

Conversely, some might argue that going to postsecondary education, immediately is the best way to become successful, and taking a year off from school is just a waste of time. Likewise, being away from school