Berkeley Parents Network: Gap Year

Berkeley Parents Network

Gap Year

Advice, discussions, and reviews from the Parents of Teens weekly email newsletter.
Berkeley Parents Network > Advice > Teenagers > Gap Year

Deferring college for a year after high school - programs?
Taking off a year or two before college
More Advice about College

Deferring college for a year after high school - programs?

Feb 2006

I'd love some leads and feedback about experiences with high school grads who opted to defer their college acceptance for a year and who did a 'gap year'. What type of programs did you find rewarding, valuable or which didn't work out? In retrospect, was it a good idea? Please drop me an email. Thanks Rochelle

Our daughter (now 21) took a gap year between high school and college. It was an excellent idea for her - she was tired of academics and wanted to do something different and away from California. We were nervous about this at first - worrying whether she'd actually go back to college after a year out. Our compromise with her was that she apply to college and then ask for a deferment. We also discussed several various things that she might like to do, and the costs associated with those options. She used the web to find specific possibilities in the general areas that interested her. (As she's on a quarter abroad program in Africa at the moment, I am sorry that I can't tell you which exact websites she found most useful.) She ultimately ended up spending Sept to Dec in Americus, Georgia working for Koinonia, a program related to Habitat for Humanity. She worked on a farm, made chocolate, did some tutoring, participated in a protest at the School of the Americas, and generally got a taste of life in the south - race relations are very different there than in our hometown of Oakland. From January to March, she spent 10 weeks camping in the Bahamas with Greenforce, a British environmental organization. She learned to scuba dive, and spent most of her time helping them map a coral reef for the Bahamian Government. Another very interesting slice of life, complete with tons of bug bites! After that program was over, she decided to return to Koinonia for the rest of her gap year. She is now a junior at Carleton College in Minnesota. She's made friends at Carleton, loves the academics there, and is involved in a bunch of activities. She has had no problem being a year older than most of the kids in her class. She feels that her year off was one of the best things she's done, and I'd agree! ken

Rochelle and all parents of teens, My name is Matt Cohen-Price and I am 18 years old. I graduated from Skyline High School in Oakland last year with the intent to enroll at Goucher College in Baltimore. I asked the school for a year deferment, because I wanted to give ''real life,'' (as us kids who are a bit tired of school and home call it), a try. I haven't made a better decision in a long time. Americorps was started in the 1980's and greatly expanded by President Clinton to include three types of programs - the National Civilian Conservation Corps, Americorps Vista, and State/National Direct. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the program, it is most easily described as the Peace Corps but in the United States - working in schools, nonprofits, government, and construction. More information can be found at http://www.americorps.org/about/ac/index.asp .

I work for a nation-wide Americorps organization called City Year that focuses on service in schools. City Year recruits over 1,000 17 to 24 year olds every year to be corps members in 15 sites across the country. I work in the 45-strong Seattle/King County corps in Washington. I work with seven others running a Saturday service learning program for middle school students across Seattle (we have 80 kids showing up weekly) and I do literacy tutoring, assist in classrooms, and teach to small groups at a neighborhood school. (And no, I didn't have any teaching or classroom experience going in to the year - they kinda throw you in and you figure it out as you go!). The work is hard - the hours are long and the pay is bad. But it is unbelievably, amazingly worth it.

As far as I see it, the three main groups of people who choose to participate in Americorps programs are high school graduates with no firm plans for college or the years directly ahead, students in the middle of college (with no firm plans for finishing or the years directly ahead), and college graduates who want to wait out their college loans (payments or held off and the government pays the interest during your Americorps term for you) or who are not ready to enter the job market. But the group I rarely see represented, but who could benefit hugely from the year, are others like me--high school graduates who have plans, who know where they're going, know what they want to do and how they are going to get there. I knew when I applied to City Year that I was going to college, and I plan to graduate four years after enrolling. I also knew that I wanted to do some real work, get involved in the nonprofit world, and allow service to be my first priority for a while over classroom-based learning. This program is giving me the experience and the knowledge I need to direct the next few years of my life, reminding me what I need to learn and what skills I have to develop to make a life doing the work that I want to do.

The work I am doing this year is amazing and fulfilling, but it is not for the faint of heart. There are bad days, there are insanely long days. Hell, there are long months. There are days when I don't receive one ''thank you'' or happy glance from the students I work with, there are days when people don't show up, when kids say they don't care. But then, there are all the other days, all the tiny moments, the thank you's and the ''A'' grades from the slackers and the bullies you've been working with for months. There are days like today when a 19 year old in a wheelchair and no microphone spoke to 79 middle school students (in a room with horrible acoustics), and, instead of taunting from the students, there was silence, applause, and interactive questions. There are the good days. That's why I get up in the morning. And that's why I hands-down, wholeheartedly, completely recommend that every High School senior consider deferring and trying out a gap year with Americorps.

Forgive me if this response is a bit disorganized or incomprehensible - I just got back from stuffing 11,500 envelopes with awareness and fundraising pamphlets for the Muscular Dystrophy Organization of Seattle with 79 5th through 9th graders after workshops taught our students about what having permanent disabilities really means. I hope they got a little tiny bit of comprehension about what it must feel like to live with a disability for one’s entire life - I know I did. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have - I'm happy to talk.

Taking off a year or two before college

May 2004

We're looking for guidance (books, counselor, consultant) to help our daughter (now a Berkeley High junior) create an interesting program for heself for the year after high school -- something other than college that will get her out of the house (i.e., not living at home; preferably in another city or state), doing something interesting on her own. She's especially interested in drama and music and wants to wait a year or so for college. Any suggestions? Exploring-the-options Parent

I would like to recommend David Denman -- he's an educational consultant and does something called Time Out Adventures -- he helps teens and early twenties young people find great things to do during a year off of school. His website is http://www.timeoutadventures.net/. Check out his Siena Sojourn. He's in Marin. David has worked with some of the teens I mentor and they have really appreciated his help. I'm an educational consultant as well...I call my practice Learning Conversations. I help young people and their families design their own unique learning plans and I help teens create alternative paths to higher education. I am currently working with several teens whose passions are drama and music. I'll be offering a program in the fall for teens who want to design and direct their own learning called Independent & Interdependent Studies.--Claudia L'Amoreaux, Haven Learning Center, 510.665.9141 Claudia

The opinions and statements expressed on this website are those of parents who subscribe to the Berkeley Parents Network. Please see Disclaimer & Usage for information about using content on this website.