We encouraged all three of our kids to take gap years and go do some exploring, but none of them did it.
That was a rare one of Velocity’s either/or polls in which I have a clear unqualified opinion.
I suppose it’s slightly qualified; there are probably some people who’d do better without a gap year or so. But I think almost everybody would be better off with one. We push people who are, in this society, still essentially children to make decisions affecting their entire adult lives without giving them a chance to get anywhere near enough information to do so; often borrowing so much money for the purpose that they can’t readily switch gears if their first guess will actually pay them enough to let them get back out of debt, and are entirely screwed if it won’t. A couple of years out of school, doing a variety of things in a variety of places, before going to college should IMO be the standard pattern, with only those few who’ve clearly found their right direction by their late teens going straight to college – and then only if that direction is best suited by doing so.
I kind-of did a gap year in the late 70s. I had just started modeling and was still working in a supermarket, part-time. My parents rule was that we had to be going to school or paying rent to them. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I also didn’t have a driver’s license to get me back and forth to a college. So I got my license in the fall and signed up for winter quarter at a community college. I discovered that I hated community college because it felt just like high school. So I only took the one quarter.
But Mother loomed large and basically said, “Sign up for something. Even if you find you don’t like it, you will have learned that much at least.” My older brother was going to a tech college and suggested that I sign up for their fashion merchandise program, which was only 9 months long. Well, it would tie into modelling so I rode down to the school one day to check out the program.
So the teachers fell over themselves to try to get a model into the program, but it seemed like lightweight schooling to me. Brother’s classmates convinced me to take the much more intensive Supermarket Management track instead, as I was already working in a store. So when the next schoolyear started, that’s exactly what I did. It was good training. At the same time I discovered that people could make money writing. So I ended up back at a 4-year school to get a degree in Journalism, with an emphasis in advertising and went on to be a copywriter and then technical writer and instructional design.
I’ve been on cruises around the Hawaiian Islands, on Alaska’s Inside Passage, and along the Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland and Willamette rivers. I had a great time each time, and would be glad to go again. Someday I’d like to take a luxury cruise around the world, but deep down I doubt I ever will.
I didn’t take a gap year before college, but took two years off between college and law school. On the one hand, it recharged my batteries and I was more mature and readier for law school. On the other hand, I really forgot how to be a student, and my grades were pretty dire that first semester.
None of our three sons took a gap year, but they had that option, if they’d wanted to.
Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO4uwOC2Xg0
Clever!
Two weeks ago we took a cruise for our tenth anniversary. Despite some rough weather when departing Baltimore, we had a great time. We got to go to sleep in the middle of nowhere and wake up in the Bahamas. You can’t really beat that.
I like the all-inclusive prices of the cruise package. We got to see great singers and dancers one night and a total of five comedy shows over two nights. Want some ice cream? Covered. Soak in a hot tub? Paid for. A half round of mini golf? Gratis. (I hit a hole in one on a moving ship. Beat that, Tiger Woods.)
Yes, there are some drawbacks but every vacation has something you could improve. Our cruise was cheaper than driving to the airport, flying to the Bahamas, renting a hotel for a week, feeding ourselves, paying for activities, and all the incidentals that we would have incurred.
I didn’t take a gap year, though I would have liked to. I started on the UCLA high school honors program during my senior year in high school. And I would stay in the honors programs – with the perqs that it entailed – if I stayed on as a “continuing student.”
I claimed I wasn’t interested in cruises, but that’s not exactly true. I’d love to go on several small boat river cruises. And I’d like to go through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway to Nova Scotia and/or P.E.I.
My mom used the word and I asked her if she meant, “disconcerting”. She was certain it was “disconcerning”, and it seems to be a common mistake, at least Google found some mentions.
Was just wondering if anybody else had experience with it.
I would have assumed that it was probably a typo; and that if not, it would mean something different. “Disconcerting” is more or less “disturbing”; if “disconcerning” were a word, I would think it would mean something like ‘not being concerned with’, as in being irrelevant or as in being ignored.
ETA: I can understand how somebody could take one for the other if they’d just heard it in casual speech, though. Not everybody enunciates that “t”.
Gap year? Hell, I took a gap decade.
mmm
That reminded of my old roommate who would always say “ideal” when from the context it was clear he meant “idea”.
I once went on a trip that included a lot of time on a private train. I guess that’s kinda a cruise. I voted “something else”.
Didn’t apply to me, but shouldn’t that poll allow multiple choices, though?
I’ve been on many ocean cruises and I like them fine, though it isn’t usually my first choice for vacation. (My parents were avid cruisers for many years, and they often invited us to join them, at their expense.)
We’re going on our very first river cruise this summer, on the Rhône. Looking forward to it.
My niece is a professional photographer/videographer, and she posts these things fairly often. I always vote for the one I like the most, but in fairness she’s good, so fairly often it’s hers.
I haven’t posted in this thread previously, but felt it necessary to say that one of the options for the cruise poll should have been “Oo-ee baby”.
Regarding the question about a friend’s request for a vote:
It’s rare that I care who wins an internet contest, but it’s common that I want to help a friend. So I’d almost always vote for my friend.
Yeah, brain fart, redoing…
Santa. I was checking out the globe we had one pre-Christmas December day, age 6.
When I suddenly noticed that the North Pole had no solid land. Any castle built there wouldn’t be stable (tho my young mind wasn’t sure exactly why). Thus Santa could not exist.
I went racing downstairs and told my shocked parents. I still played along, mainly for the benefit of my younger sister.
I can’t remember whether I ever seriously believed in Santa Claus. That doesn’t seem to be an option.
– I do remember, as a young adult, being asked by my nephew, who I think was about 5, whether Santa Claus was real. I wasn’t prepared for the question, and the best I could come up with was “There are different kinds of real.” Which is true enough; but he responded with a very disappointed sigh and “I thought so.”