Life After High School: Learning Outside the Classroom

Parents' concerns

Worry: Their son or daughter will not go back to school.

Reality: Many students complete their year off having gained a more specific idea of what career path they want to pursue. Those students who participate in a planned program are more likely to continue in college than those who do not make plans. Some students may not in fact choose to go to college, which may be an appropriate decision.

Worry: The cost of the year off will decrease the money available for tuition.

Reality: The financial investment in the year off varies. Some programs require tuition, others may pay a stipend, thus adding to the money available for tuition. Living arrangements also vary. They are provided by some programs; in others the students pay.

Worry: Students will find it hard to go back to studying and following a curriculum.

Reality: Study skills are not lost in one year. In fact, lack of focus or burnout can be more problematic for students who don't take a year off. Many students who do take the time off enter college with an improved ability to focus and a renewed desire to learn.

Worry: This is just a way of avoiding 'real life.'

Reality: Many students find the time-off experience rewarding and enter their college studies with a more mature and self-directed appreciation of 'real life.'

Worry: Students abroad aren't safe. They could wind up in a prison in a third-world country or get hurt in an accident.

Reality: The vast majority of those who delay college to work or study in foreign countries come back safe and sound.

Ideally, parents and their children should research, explore and agree on the path to take, so that everyone feels excited and committed to the decision.

The value of taking time off to experience and gain from other ways of learning is highlighted in the remarks of Harvard's Dean of Admissions, "Most students would be better off if they were able to get some perspective on themselves, their lives, what they hope to accomplish. The testimony from people who have done this [taken a year off] is extraordinary. It permeates the entire way they think about using university." 2