Minding the Gap How taking a year off from school might just be the biggest adventure of your life… by Briana Leong Definition A gap year is,“…time out to travel between life stages.” – Wikipedia“…a structured period of time when students take a break from formal education to increase self-awareness, push their comfort zones, and experiment with possible careers. Typically these are achieved by a combination of traveling, volunteering, interning, or working.” – American Gap Association HistoryThe practice of gap year is rumored to have developed in the 1960s United Kingdom. By 1980, the first Gap Year Counseling organization in the United States appeared under the lead of Cornelius H. Bull. Nowadays, taking a gap year is a popular option among students from the UK, the US, and Australia; the trend is also slowly but surely making its way east to Asian countries. Members of The Royal Family - Prince William, Prince Harry, and Kate Middleton all took gap years.230,000 – The number of people taking a gap year per year in the UK alone.“To stop going crazy” – Diva Beyoncé Knowles explains why she took a gap year traveling and recuperating after making it big in the music industry in 2003.In Yemen, it is obligatory for students to defer a year between secondary school and university.In Israel, it is customary for young adults to go backpacking upon completing their mandatory military service. “Uncertainty in my personal and academic goals” – The number one reason why, in 2010, 12% of Taiwan’s grad students decided to take gap years. 40 - The percentage of Korean students who took gap years in 2012 to empower their working skills in face of a recent economic meltdown. Other names for gap year include sabbatical, time out, time off, and a year out.A Gapper is a person who is taking a gap year. Gapper Louise Tan 陳敏鈺 · Malaysian, sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in Economics · I spent my gap year interning at a radio station, also interning with two of Malaysia’s Members of Parliament, Hannah Tan and Tony Pua. · The highlight of my gap year wasattending The Bersih 3.0 Rally (Peace rally in Malaysia calling for electoral reforms, attended by an estimated 300,000 people on 28th April 2012) · The best thing about taking a gap year is the complete utter freedom to do what you want and meet people you like. Interning is also great, because you get a taste of the working world. Young urban students have the privilege of doing this and they should. · My advice for perspective gappers is to strike a balance between doing something completely different, as well as improving things you’re already good at. · As the result from her fruitful year off, Louise founded Mind The Gap Malaysia, an online support group for Malaysian gappers. · Canadian, Linguistics degree from McGill University, currently a Freshman in the University of Toronto under the Engineering Science program · I spent my gap year in Taiwan learning Chinese, drinking tea, and discovering myself; also in Hong Kong learning Cantonese and working on a tea farm. · In my opinion, taking a gap year is a good investment in terms of understanding oneself as well as accumulating life experiences. · When my gap year ended, my life feltsucky in comparison, but the gap year’s brevity is what makes it so cherishable. · All in all, my gap year didn’t change me profoundly, but I learnt more about myself than I would have in a ‘normal’ year. During his gap year, David started writing a personal blog in Chinese. Gapper Pele Yang 楊懿
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May 2024
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