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08/17/2001 Archived Entry: "Gap years"

Once again, it's the silly season of the year - not A-Level results, but the debate on whether Gap years are worth pursuing. While I'm, at best, skeptical about the benefits of Gap years in general, I'm willing to acknowledge that a well-planned and executed Gap year can be extremely useful to a person (useful in what way is a more subjective thing).

However, the thing that really bothers me about the pro-Gappers is the arguments they use against not taking a gap year and going straight to university. First off we have, 'You need to get some experience of the real world!' Ah, yes, I see - travelling around Bolivia and Peru is of course seeing the 'real world' as you'll experience it when you graduate from university, right? Of course not! Apart from a very tiny percentage, most of those who go on Gap years will have to admit that their Gap year bears little to no resemblance of what the 'real world' is actually like, unless they decide to go and emigrate to a developing country.

Then there's the holier-than-thou statements of 'While my mates were partying in Fresher's week, I was cleaning toilets in Venezuela.' Good for you; however, eventually you're going to have to go to university as well so it doesn't really make that much difference, does it? And what's to stop your mates from cleaning the very same toilets after they've graduated, huh?

So really I'm not arguing about the potential value of Gap years here, what I'm annoyed at are the patronising attitudes of some Gappers.