Should teens in the US adopt the British custom of taking a gap year between high school and college - Research Paper Example

?Life is a long journey which individuals must take advantage of in order to grow as human beings through their experiences. The American educationalsystem is set up to have children in school for twelve years prior to entering college. Young people take advantage of this system to become educated at the basic skills needed to function well in society. In order for a person to get the advance knowledge needed to obtain a career they must go to college. The traditional path for 18 year old kids is to finish high school and go straight to college. Sometimes kids are a bit burnout from studying when they finish high school. Young people have options available to them that may not include college straight out of high school. In Europe a tradition that has gained popularity among teenagers is to take what is referred to as a gap year prior to entering college. A gap year is a year a person takes off from school in order to pursue a lifelong dream or to utilize the time to enter the workforce to gain a taste of the corporate world prior to starting college. In the United Kingdom in 2008 11% of the 300,000 high school graduate population took a gap years prior to starting college (MacDonald, 2008). The tradition of taking a gap year that is engrained in the European society could help young American become better individuals. A gap year can be dedicated to a variety of different activities. A person may use a gap year to pursue a dream such as learning how to paint, to play on a band, or on perfecting a particular craft such as acting or designing clothes (Associatedcontent, 2007). People with sporting talent may pursue a gap year in order to improve their game to possibly land a sporting scholarship once they apply to college. There is no specific path that a young person has to follow in their gap year. A person may just take the year off in order to blow off some steam from the educational system that forces student to continue four additional years of schooling after twelve consecutive years of the academic world. Sometimes young adults have difficulty deciding what career choice to choose from. The gap year can be used to help a young person decipher what to do with life in the future. A career is something that once a person chooses one they will be working at that craft for the rest of their lives. A young person can utilize the gap year in order to perform an internship in a corporation. Choosing a multinational corporation to realize an internship can give a young person an exciting firsthand look at corporate America. An internship can be an excellent opportunity to start creating a network with professionals of different backgrounds. A reality check for many young people when they aspire to go to college is that fact that college is a very expensive ordeal. When people graduate out of high they typically do not have any money for college expenses and they depend solely on the help of their parents and governmental economic assistance. For many students the gap year can serve as a solution for them to accumulate some money prior to starting college. Getting a job for year working can provide an opportunity for student to save money. Sometimes student have specific goals for their money such as saving up some cash in order to buy a car prior to starting college. Having your own car is very important for a young person because it gives the individual more liberty and provides a greater opportunity to enjoy social and cultural activities. Another potential reason to take a gap year is to fulfill the dreams of others in need by performing community service. Community service can be a very gratifying experience that can help young people mature and become better individuals. The efforts of people that perform community service are priceless to the community. There are some sophisticated community service program that allow young people an opportunity to travel to other parts of the world to help people in need. Young people with a desire to help can travel to other continents such as Africa. An organization that allows students a chance to travel to Africa in order to perform community service in the African continent is 360 Student Travel (360studenttravel, 2010). A lot of young people are eager travel to other parts of the world to learn about other cultures. The gap year can be used by young adults as an opportunity to travel and see the world. Many young Americans want to get to know their own country. These young people utilize the gap year to become grifters and travel throughout the United States to get to know their own country. There are so many beautiful sites and places to see within the United States. In order to travel even within the United States a person needs money. In order to achieve their aspirations to travel these individual split their gap years working to save money to then travel. For example they work the first six months of the gap year and then they utilize the 2nd half of the year to travel. The gap year is a European custom that can help young people learn about them and become better prepare to choose a career path once they enter the university environment. Most universities are very accepting of the gap year concept because they know that the gap can help a young person mature so that once they reach college they are better able to deal with the pressures of university life. Despite the acceptance of many universities of the gap year concept it is important for students to do their research about the position of the university they want to apply to regarding gap years. There are colleges and university in America that do not accept gap year students (Educational-portal, 2010). The gap year is a great concept that should be considered by American students prior to starting college. References 360studenttravel.com (2010). Africa Community Service: 12 or 25 days. Retrieved January 28, 2011 from http://www.360studenttravel.com/communityserviceafrica/index.shtml Associatedcontent.com (2007). Is There Life Between High School and College? Retrieved January 28, 2011 from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/270404/the_gap_year_is_there_life_between_pg2.html?cat=25 Educational-portal.com (2010). Taking a Gap Year Between High School and College Video. Retrieved January 28, 2011 from http://education-portal.com/videos/Taking_a_Gap_Year_Between_High_School_and_College_Video.html MacDonald, J. (2008). ‘Gap year’ before college gives grads valuable life experience. USA Today. Retrieved January 28, 2010 from http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-06-18-gap-year_N.htm Read More