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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."
You might try six semester hours at a local college, or university for a semester. Kinda get your feet wet...
The down side of this is that the subjects that you take might not be those which 'flip your switch.' It's also possible that the profs, or instructors that you happen to get don't operate at anything like the same wavelength that you do. Of course the flip side of this is that you might luck out and take courses that really jingle your bells and have facility members that are very much on your wavelength.
The upshot of these caveats is that not taking a full course load your first time at bat might leave you with a false impression, either good, or bad, of what college is like. Then again even if you do decide to take a full academic load you still might either bomb out, or luck out on your courses, though it's a lower probility.
FWIW
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
As soon as you swerve from this narrow path of conformity, your odds of getting a degree (and that bigger income) start to plummet... but at the same time your likelihood of finding meaning in your life starts to escalate.
I could only take a half-year off without losing my scholarships, but my willingness to toe the line plummeted anyway, and I dropped out after a year, then went back a couple more times to other schools, but never got the 4-year degree.
I've rarely sought jobs where a degree would have mattered (eg programming, especially) but I've also had to get used to life being a constant struggle, materially, in exchange for a fantastic advantage in freedom of thought.
If you can answer the questions easily, skip the next 3 paragraphs. Otherwise, read on.
I am strongly convinced that college is almost always a rewarding and worthwhile experience. There are people at my workplace (software development) who got jobs without any degree. They are good computer people and good programmers, but many (not all) of them lack some of the breadth and depth of knowledge that most (not all) of the college graduates have. You know -- the stuff that you thought you would never need when your teacher was forcing it down your throat. Most of the time, you were right. But some of the time, the teacher was right and it turned out to be useful. College (at least a Bachelor's degree) is almost always the right idea. (Going beyond the Bachelor's degree sometimes makes sense and sometimes does not -- it isn't quite the sure-thing like the 4-year degree.)
Next, if you will do something useful with your time off, this is not a problem. When future employers/college admissions officers/scholarship reviewers see someone who took a year off, that opens up opportunities for points -- both positive AND negative. If you just hung around the house, hung out with friends, played Quake all day, etc., you will rack up some pretty big negative points. If you got a job, you might get back to zero. If you got a job "to save up for tuition" or spent a year with Peace Core, you might get some positive credit. It all depends on what you do with your time. Colleges and employers are usually looking for people who can follow through even when the going gets tough. Those who "take a year off" just to relax might be judged harshly. Those who diverged from the traditional high-school --> college path to expand horizons and do something meaningful might earn kudos.
Finally, you need to do the math. While life is a journey, not a destination, certain parts of the journey are more meaningful than others. What I mean is, by taking a year off now, you effectively slide many milestones of your life up by one year. You'll probably have one year less of a career before you retire. You'll be one year older when you graduate from college. This may or may not matter. Just think about it.
Ok, if you skipped those three, welcome back. So if you don't REALLY want to go to college, it is likely that after the year off, you REALLY won't want to go back, so remember that taking a year off significantly decreases your chance of going at all. Second, the year off had better be filled with worthwhile endeavors since employers and college admissions officers will be asking about it for years to come. And finally, make sure you weigh the long term consequences of the decision.
I was talking to a counselor one day during my senior year of college. I told him that I was contemplating taking a few months, maybe a year off after graduating and after doing a summer internship. Just sitting back for a while, perhaps going to Hawaii, perhaps doing some open source work, etc. I said that I really hadn't had any time off since my Junior year of High School. He knew me pretty well, and he thought for a minute and said that I would probably enjoy it for a week or two, then start getting restless again. And he was right. Those that have the drive in them to move forward in life can't just sit back and rest for two long before one of two things happens: the drive dies, or the drive compels them to get back in gear.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Right after High School I was SICK of school. All I wanted was to get some blue collar job and live a moderate life. So I bummed around all summer, and most of the fall, untill I got a warehouse job. Within three days I went to the Registrar to sign up for Comp.Sci. And even after that I had another 8 or so months untill school started for me, so I had more reality crammed down my throat. Why is this a good thing? Because REALITY BLOWS.
Of course the negative is I didn't get along with the vast majority of other first-years when I finally went - they had all come straight from university and had no clue what the real world was. They slacked all their classes because they didn't know what was out there for those who didn't PASS. If I hadn't done it, I probably would've slacked and failed too.
YMMV
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
Personally, I did the opposite (skipped senior year of high school to go to college a year earlier). It never came up in my job interviews, but it does come up with friends and coworkers occassionally. I agree with the other comments about admission: they go through thousands of transcripts, I doubt they'll even notice when they admit you a year later. That said, you might check out getting admitted now, and then deferring for a year. I don't know if that's an option or not, but it could be the best of both worlds.
But if it does come up, in job interviews, admission screenings, etc., I think the most important thing is that you have a good answer for why you did it. I think this is true for anything unusual that you do in your life that people are going to notice on your resume, not just this.
For example, I'm an American, but I've done a bit of traveling -- I spent the first half of my junior year in Prague, went to Paris for a vacation, and I'm now living in England for two years. People see that sort of thing on your resume and ask you about it on occassion. And if you can come up with a coherent, short, meaningful answer for why, then I think it's a good way for people to remember you and mark you out as someone who's willing to try something different.
If, on the other hand, you have a bunch of dead-end jobs, drink/smoke/whatever the year away, and have nothing to show for it at the end of the day, I think it's not a very good situation. You should have some reason better than just wanting to grow up, chill out and get your priorities straight (you didn't mention why you want to take a year off, so I'm just guessing...). It doesn't have to be anything huge, if I was interviewing a programmer and he said he took a year off to work on his photography, I'd count it as positive, even if the photography never turned out to be anything more than a hobby.
-Esme
What an asslicker you are. When did employers become our new gods? I say FUCK EM. They certainly WILL NOT help you out later in life if you want to take a year off.
Best example. I have a friend who had an interview at Nortel in the boom days. Nortel was playing primmadonna and had the guy do 4 interviews and pretty much only focussed on the gap between him graduating university and starting to work in electronics. He had graduated in a recession and worked in other fields.
So Nortel said 'we don't like your career path'.
My jaw fell to the ground. My hatred for the place went through the roof. Anyways, two years later, the same Nortel people who interviewed him are now BROWN-SPUTTERING THEIR PANTS and begging on their KNEES FOR A JOB AT HOME DEPOT.
Lesson: Those arrogant bastards are YOU. The time will come when you will be in trouble and not work for a while. I relish the day YOU will be begging and confront a guy with YOUR attitude.
So FUCK YOU and your career-over-everything bullshit. When you're retired and YOUR boss will have sucked everything he could out of you, and you're old and tired and sick, it's TOO LATE TO ENJOY LIFE. So go lick your fucking diplomas and polish your boss's car or something.
Let the kid ENJOY LIFE now.
There are people who go back to school after DECADES. I hope they will not meet tight asses like you.
So again, FUCK YOU.
Hey kid, Mr. Anonymous story submitter, don't let the career mongers scare you. Fuck em good and hard in their flat out of shape asses.
ENJOY LIFE NOW. Not only are you supposed to enjoy your youth, but in the future, your year off will weed out the employers like utopia, people you don't want to work for.
Have stories to tell your friends and your future kids! Do interesting things! Find a job in London and move in with interesting people! Backpack in Tibet!
HAVE FUN while Mr. Career pops the Tagamets and watches his youth dwindle away!
GO GO GO GO GO GO *NOW*! Don't even read the other replies here! Go NOW!
I'm a college senior and thinking about taking a year (or ten) off before going to graduate school. The advice I have gotten from all of my professors about this is that I should seriously consider a year off, for a multitude of reasons. The chance to spend a year in the Real World before you turn 26 was a major one, but another point many of my professors made probably applies to your decision, too.
They said that the graduation rate among grad students who took a year off was much higher.
There was a lot of speculation as to why this is, but most of the hypotheses can be boiled down to two possibilities: either the students who go straight on to college are more burnt out because they haven't not been in school since they were 6, or the students who took a year off had an extra year to mature, got some time to think about why they want to go to college, and were in generall much better prepared to get a 4 year degree.
I think that both of these hypotheses are correct. I know far to many kids at my school who got pushed into college right after high school when they didn't want to go right away, didn't know if they wanted to go at all, or didn't even have a good idea why they would be going to college in the first place. The lucky ones figured it all out in a month or two, and the rest have this amazing tendency to bomb out or drop out.
As for the crap that people feed you about it looking bad to admissions counsellors and potential employers, don't listen to a word of that crap. A year off gives you a great chance to impress the pants off of college admissions counsellors - just go volunteer somewhere or do something else useful rather than spending the whole year in your parents' house playing GTA3 and eating Doritos. As for employers, I don't think any employer is going to scrutinize a year off of college as long as you do well otherwise - they're going to be much more concerned with how you handled yourself during college. To that end, it's MUCH better to take a year off before college than a year off in the middle of college.
Seriously, though, when you listen to the advice people give you, make sure you are getting advice from informed sources. Like you said, most the people who are outspoken about this didn't take a year off and have no idea what they are talking about - they're just parroting crap they fuzzily remember hearing from someone else who didn't know what they were saying and were parroting crap they fuzzily remember hearing from someone else. They're probably also assuming you want to take a year off for a chance to goof off - if that's true, I wouldn't recommend doing it, but if you're taking a year off to do something that will enrich your life, teach you anything, or that year off will in some other way set you better off in life, by all means, take it.
There's a lot of things to consider when thinking about taking a break before college. I wish I had - instead, I went to college with the same attitude I had in high school. I cared about learning, but I didn't care about busywork assignments that meant nothing to me. I had a notion to skip a year, but since my ACT score was above the 99.5 percentile, my state paid my full ride to any in-state public university, so I figured I might as well go. All I have to show for it is three semesters of C's, D's, F's, and W's permanently marked on my college transcript. The full-ride check from the state was revoked for poor academics, and now I couldn't even get grants or loans because my GPA was down in the dumpster.
Obviously, I left college and went to work, and now fully realize the value of going to college and getting a degree. This was something that no amount of "counseling" would actually have taught me (not that the so-called counselers bothered to try). Not only that, but by having some experience actually working in the computer field, I realize it's not where I want to be. I enjoy computers as a hobby, but not as a career.
So, now I am 22, I am back in school full-time, at a community college, going for a new major, working full-time as I go, and getting a 4.0. I only wish I didn't have a bad GPA from my previous college attempt that I have to work against for the rest of my college career. Next semester I should be above the 2.0 average required so I can recieve financial aid again. Pell grant and loans are my only options now - I've ruined the chance of getting anything based on merit now.
Looking back, everything in my life would be so much easier today if I had just stopped and taken a break like I wanted to after high school. Don't take is as an easy ride, bumming off family - go out and try to make it in the world. My only question now is whether one year would have been enough for me.
-jupo
There are only a few instances where I would recommend taking a year off:
Long term travel (several months outside your culture).
A killer intership in an interesting field.
Some sort of hardcore volunteer gig.
If you can have an experience that will challenge you more than college, go for it.
Sick of school and want a break? Take an extra year to get your degree instead. You'll probably get a better education and the stress won't be nearly as bad.
The five year plan lets you spread out your classes a little. You'll have the time to dig deeper and learn more about the subjects that interest you. For 'hard' majors, having the extra time is important. Instead of pounding out A- caliber filler to get through the class, you can learn the material. Of course if learning isn't your gig, you can party a lot more too.
Also check out Choices for the High School Graduate: A Survival Guide for the Information Age which addresses this very question by following the experiences of HS grads who made various choices with their lives and what they learned from their experiences.
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