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Taking a Year Off Before College?
An anonymous reader asks: "I am a high school senior this year and I have been considering a year off before college. Is this a wise move? If you took a year off, were you still able to get into the school you wanted? I have been asking around and everyone tells me it is a horrible move; however, the people who say this are the ones who did not take a year off."
Otherwise everybody starting from your future college to your employer will question about the gap in your education.
Take a year off after you complete your education if you want to.
The central question is: are you ready to go to college next year or not? If you are not ready -- because you don't realy want to go, because you don't have the academic skills or motivation necessary to do well, etc. -- then the worst thing to do is to go. In that case, you waste time and money and squander the precious opportunity to secure strong educational outcomes for yourself.
So, from my perspective as a college teacher the opportunity to do it right is too precious to waste. As long as you use your time off to become better prepared to succeed, to get a clearer sense of why you want to go to college and want you want to achieve, or to have interesting and enriching life experiences then educationally taking a year off is well worth it, and it will be recognized as such by nearly anyone within higher education.
I think it's a bad idea. I took a couple of years off between my bachelors and masters. I had a hard time remembering all the background material I learned in my bachelors, when I started the masters courses. Of course, in your case, it's high school to college/university, but the same idea applies.
Dave
FPGA, Wireless, ASIC, Verilog, VHDL, HW, 10yr exp, Team Lead, Ottawa (More? Email above. slashdotusername=dgmartin98 )
My understanding is that, most of the time, if you are a college student full time, you can stay on your parent's insurance program. Depending on your work/living situation, this may be beneficial.
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I left high school a year early. In the end, I ended up taking more time than I could have getting my Bachelor's degree. This was mainly because I really was not ready to get started in an undergraduate program.
The big thing is that I am pretty positive the same thing would have happened had I stayed all four years of high school.
During my college experience, I took a year off and worked. I sold shoes and did some substitute teaching at some high schools. I travelled a little, and enjoyed life.
Now I tutor kids in math on the side, and I generally tell them to take a year between high school and college (granted, most of these kids are at the lower end of the educational spectrum). Take a year (or more, sometimes) to figure out what you want to do, and why you should be in school.
A year in college when you are not ready is largely a waste of time for you, the college, and the money spent on it.
My advice: If you are doubting going to college next year, chances are there is some reason. As others have stated, if there is a good enough reason, sit out. You are only going to be more ready and more prepared when you enter college.
Provided you can say what you did during that year, future employers are only going to respect your decision. They will see it as a sign of maturity - you were able to assess yourself and see what your needs were that year.
When I was hired on at my current position, I was respected because I was able to give firm reasoning behind my career choice - I had taken time during college, during my year off, to figure out what I wanted. My future employers know that I am not going to decide six months into the job that education is not the field I want to work in.
One thing to definitely look into - you might be able to apply to colleges this year and then defer the admissions for a year. There is definitely information concerning this online.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
This was alluded to elsewhere, but try this: apply to every college you're interested in now/this year, and then see if any of them allow you to take a year off _after_ getting offered admission.
That could very well save many of the hassles that other people mention.