A Year "Off"?
August 12th 2009 11:49
The economy is showing weak signs of recovery or at least is beginning to collapse at a slower rate, but new college graduates are still facing a weak job market, to the point that one young woman felt desperate enough to sue her alma mater. Is this a good time to take a year off before entering college? Is it ever a good time to step out of the educational system after high school? If you are a high school junior or senior, what do you stand to gain? If you're a parent, why would you let your child go?
The rest of this post is about my personal experience with studying abroad. I've listed some general resources for studing abroad at the end.
I spent a year studying abroad before entering college. I didn't see it as a "gap year" nor as taking time off. After attending Jewish schools from pre-school through high school, I wanted to try my hand at independent advanced study of Jewish texts and spent a year at a yeshiva program in Jerusalem's old city. Of course, a good study abroad program provides ample opportunities for studying local history and touring, which mine did. My place of study was steeped in archeology, looking directly upon the Temple mount and built over chambers belonging to the priests of the Temple period.
And then there were life-changing experiences: by way of a personal connection made during high school, I met two future Prime Ministers and toured part of the country by helicopter. Also extraordinary (in the negative sense) was that part of my year in Israel was spent under partial lockdown as Saddam Hussein sent scud after scud into Israel in a bizarre response to the US's coming to Kuwait's defense after Iraq invaded that country. I saw missiles in the sky on the one occassion I was out of Jerusalem during the war, and I ran almost nightly to sealed rooms while putting on a gas mask. While a horrible experience, it provided me some insights into myself and others that I would not otherwise have had. You (or your children) will NOT experience anything like that, but you will have opportunities to experience the world in a way that you cannot while remaining at home or even in the United States.
Obviously, study abroad programs can be expensive, although there are times when they prove to be a bargain relative to college. A number of my colleagues ultimately went to colleges where they received undergraduate credits for their year. I knew going into my program that Brown University did not accept any yeshiva study for credit. For me, a student who more often read books on my own than when they were assigned, the feeling of being completely in control of my education and not answering to anyone else for it provided an opportunity for personal growth.
Whether that had anything to do with the fact that I usually stayed up to sometime between 1 and 3 am studying (not for tests, just for the intellectual pursuit), I can't be sure. I did make a commitment to myself to pursue my studies at university with a similar level of commitment and when I returned to the United States, I noticed that when I entered university I had much more focus than most of my classmates and significantly more than I had during my most of my years of high school. I found the break gave me a chance to think about education as my OWN pursuit, rather than something others told me I had to do.
I've spoken with many people who spent a year or two off between HS and college and even those who did little more than 'hang out' also found they were better students when they were back in school, since they had burned off whatever needs they had for bachanalia before that affected their education and GPA's. Since this post is an extended response toa post at Pop Culturalist, you can look there for a criticism of the idea of studying abroad as escape.
I know that I went from being a student who was happy to more-or-less 'get by' on my ability to breeze through most of my HS materials and score in the B range to being a student who briefly felt crushed by a B on my first college midterm because it meant I hadn't "really changed" and then redoubled my efforts and graduated both magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. I firmly believe that I would not have put nearly as much effort into my college studies had I not spent a year abroad.
Some good places to start your exploration of the possibilities involved in studying abroad
General Resources
CIEE : Council on International Educational Exchange resouces
If you like the idea of spending time abroad but spending additonal money beyond college tuition is not right for you, some universities allow students to begin their studies abroad. One former student of mine began her undergraduate studies at NYU in Italy, returning to the main campus at the end of the year. That program can be seen here.
The rest of this post is about my personal experience with studying abroad. I've listed some general resources for studing abroad at the end.
I spent a year studying abroad before entering college. I didn't see it as a "gap year" nor as taking time off. After attending Jewish schools from pre-school through high school, I wanted to try my hand at independent advanced study of Jewish texts and spent a year at a yeshiva program in Jerusalem's old city. Of course, a good study abroad program provides ample opportunities for studying local history and touring, which mine did. My place of study was steeped in archeology, looking directly upon the Temple mount and built over chambers belonging to the priests of the Temple period.
And then there were life-changing experiences: by way of a personal connection made during high school, I met two future Prime Ministers and toured part of the country by helicopter. Also extraordinary (in the negative sense) was that part of my year in Israel was spent under partial lockdown as Saddam Hussein sent scud after scud into Israel in a bizarre response to the US's coming to Kuwait's defense after Iraq invaded that country. I saw missiles in the sky on the one occassion I was out of Jerusalem during the war, and I ran almost nightly to sealed rooms while putting on a gas mask. While a horrible experience, it provided me some insights into myself and others that I would not otherwise have had. You (or your children) will NOT experience anything like that, but you will have opportunities to experience the world in a way that you cannot while remaining at home or even in the United States.
Obviously, study abroad programs can be expensive, although there are times when they prove to be a bargain relative to college. A number of my colleagues ultimately went to colleges where they received undergraduate credits for their year. I knew going into my program that Brown University did not accept any yeshiva study for credit. For me, a student who more often read books on my own than when they were assigned, the feeling of being completely in control of my education and not answering to anyone else for it provided an opportunity for personal growth.
Whether that had anything to do with the fact that I usually stayed up to sometime between 1 and 3 am studying (not for tests, just for the intellectual pursuit), I can't be sure. I did make a commitment to myself to pursue my studies at university with a similar level of commitment and when I returned to the United States, I noticed that when I entered university I had much more focus than most of my classmates and significantly more than I had during my most of my years of high school. I found the break gave me a chance to think about education as my OWN pursuit, rather than something others told me I had to do.
I've spoken with many people who spent a year or two off between HS and college and even those who did little more than 'hang out' also found they were better students when they were back in school, since they had burned off whatever needs they had for bachanalia before that affected their education and GPA's. Since this post is an extended response toa post at Pop Culturalist, you can look there for a criticism of the idea of studying abroad as escape.
I know that I went from being a student who was happy to more-or-less 'get by' on my ability to breeze through most of my HS materials and score in the B range to being a student who briefly felt crushed by a B on my first college midterm because it meant I hadn't "really changed" and then redoubled my efforts and graduated both magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. I firmly believe that I would not have put nearly as much effort into my college studies had I not spent a year abroad.
Some good places to start your exploration of the possibilities involved in studying abroad
General Resources
CIEE : Council on International Educational Exchange resouces
If you like the idea of spending time abroad but spending additonal money beyond college tuition is not right for you, some universities allow students to begin their studies abroad. One former student of mine began her undergraduate studies at NYU in Italy, returning to the main campus at the end of the year. That program can be seen here.
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