Every parent from India is familiar with the sentence that breaks the dinner table harmony: "I want to take a year off". Panic mode on. What will the family say? Is there any hope left for the chair to return? Is there any chance for the child to read something again?
Something that is often overlooked when having a discussion at such dinners: an intentional gap year prior to college India-style is connected with better academic results, improved concentration and reduced number of regrets. The belief that taking time off means ruining your future life is much older than the studies supporting it. Let us put it to rest, worry by worry.
Myth 1: "If You Pause, You Never Restart"
It is understandable. For the Indian student, going from class 12 to college is like boarding a train and getting out means being stranded at the platform.
Not according to the numbers. Survey data released by Gap Year Association in the US showed that approximately nine in ten students took up college within a year of returning from their gap year. They did not vanish into thin air. They came back.
What really stops one in their tracks is burnout. After two years of board exams, coaching and preparations for the entrance exams, enough 18-year-old students come to college feeling burnt out and unsure about their reasons for joining the particular course. Some drop out in year two. Others keep attending but stop learning. This too is a gap year, only one with the benefit of fees paid.
Even Harvard, a university not famous for putting any brakes on ambition, recommends it to admitted students.
The Benefits of Gap Year Students, According to the Data
Instead, let’s talk about what the research tells us, not your Auntie’s WhatsApp group:
- Better grades: A long-term study at Middlebury College has shown that gap year participants are more likely to perform better in terms of GPAs than their peers without a gap year. An investigation in Australia, focusing on first-year university students, has come to a similar conclusion.
- Greater motivation and better choice of courses: Those who take gap years tend to have a reason to attend classes when they return. If you choose the course because you want to and not because everybody did, the way you approach studying will change.
- Employability skills: While hiring managers care little about your CGPA, they value communication, independence, problem-solving and initiative. And taking a gap year helps develop all these skills.
- The one legitimate caveat is that most research on the subject is carried out in Western countries, while gap year participants are those who come from a motivated and supported background.
Is a Gap Year Good for Everyone? Honestly, No
To be a contrarian does not equate to being imprudent. Is a gap year good for everyone? No.
This only works well if the student has a purpose and a rough idea of what he or she wants to achieve within the year, along with the support of his or her parents. This becomes futile if it is an escape from making tough decisions, or if the year has nothing structured about it.
Before embarking on such a venture, one should ask the following questions:
- Why is a gap year needed, and how will life change after this?
- What will the person do each month?
- What will happen afterward: what course or exams or college or when?
If the answers to these questions are not clear, then the answer is not “never.” Instead, it is “not yet.” A good counselor will always transform a vague idea into a concrete plan.
How to Plan a Gap Year That Actually Counts
Be it the concerned parent who is apprehensive of the gap between secondary school and college or the eager-to-leave student, there are certain practices that will tell an intelligent gap from a drifting one.
- Create structure: Divide the year into three or four stages with one objective each for each stage - developing a skill, gaining experience, exploring or preparing for exams.
- Plan ahead: Find out about admission deadlines and deferrals early on. Certain universities have deferred admission policy while some may require you to apply all over again.
- Document it all: Save certificates, assignments and little reflection pieces. These will form your narrative in application forms and interview sessions.
- Seek external perspective: Career testing and a candid discussion with a career counselor keep families from fighting over the same point. At Expert Educare, we advise both the students and the parents.
The Bottom Line
Gap year does not have to be the opposite of ambition. If chosen for the right student with a plan, it is simply ambition with better target setting.
In case you as parents find yourselves lying awake about this, and the student hesitantly wonders if he is permitted to take a gap year, begin with having a discussion, not with coming to a conclusion. Discuss with the experts from Expert Educare.