Higher Education Guide

TAKING A GAP YEAR There has been a very wide range of Gap Year opportunities available to students. Thousands of school leavers every year have deferred their entry to university in order to gain some experience of the wider world. Opportunities include: • A year in industry.

• Paid employment.

• Volunteering.

• Acquiring a new language.

• Going on an expedition.

• Qualifying as a ski/sail instructor.

• Enrolling on an Art History course.

Before deciding whether you are going to embark on one, it is worth considering the pros and cons. Please note that real advantages can only be gained if you spend your Gap Year productively. With the recent pandemic, the opportunities for GAP years have been severely curtailed, but we are hopeful that these will start to regrow soon.

Advantages • Maturity Students arrive at university a year older and a year wiser. They have also matured greatly (if they have used the time productively) and have learnt to become independent and self-reliant. It is often easy to spot the Freshers who have taken a Gap Year, for not only do they look healthy; they are invariably more outgoing and confident.

• Rested Students start their degree courses having had a break from the academic and examinations treadmill. They often appear fresher and ready for the academic challenges ahead.

• Finances Students can, and do, spend part of their Gap Year making and saving money for university. This is becoming increasingly important.

• Skills Students can, and do, gain new skills and valuable work experience during Gap Years, making them more attractive to potential employers.

Disadvantages • Time Time is often cited as a concern regarding Gap Years particularly for students thinking of pursuing long degrees like Medicine.

• Continuity Continuity has been known to be a problem in certain subjects like Mathematics and Science whereby students simply forget much of what they learnt in the Sixth Form and have to spend much of their first year at university catching up.

• Distraction Distraction is something that worries some parents. The fear is that by taking a Gap Year, a student will want to opt out of university altogether (in our experience this rarely happens).

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