As your undergraduate career comes to an end, the next expected step to take is to continue on to graduate or professional school depending on the level of education your career requires. But are you ready to take that step? Are you prepared to commit to another two to eight years of schooling? Or do you need time to travel or gain additional work experience? Maybe then you should consider taking a gap year. A gap year is defined as a period of time taken by a student to travel or work as a break from formal education and it is perfectly acceptable to do!
So if you are a recent or upcoming graduate here are some pros and cons if you are contemplating taking a gap year:
Pros:
1. You have the ability to travel and gain experience
By taking a gap year this allows you to do some world traveling and gain cultural experience you might not have found during your undergraduate career. Additionally this allows you to take part in volunteer programs that can give you both opportunities like the PeaceCorps or City Year. Also you have the ability to gain experience in the work atmosphere which you may have not had the time to do in undergraduate. This could be obtaining an internship, paid or unpaid, that helps widen your knowledge of the field you have decided to pursue; programs such as medical, business, health professional, etc. require you to have observational hours so by taking time to boost your experience could be beneficial in your acceptance into their school.
2. Time to grow and re-evaluate your career direction
This added time you will have by taking a gap year will allow you to go and experience your chosen field so you know that you are making the correct career choice for you. This also enables you to set goals that were different from undergraduate and more geared toward your success in graduate or professional school. You need this time (or some time in general) to mature and come to realistic objectives that can be reached both during your gap year(s) and graduate school.
3. Save up money
Graduate school is not cheap. Believe me, just looking at the numbers makes me sick whenever I am researching potential programs; so taking a gap year to save money to go to graduate school is a smart idea to consider. Yes, you also have the option of taking out loans to assist you in paying for your program but those could add up especially if you are carrying some from undergraduate as well.
4. Improve your application
A gap year can really improve your overall application to graduate schools if you felt you were not competitive enough. This year(s) would allow you gain additional work experience, give you the opportunity to boost grades that were maybe subpar (which in turn would improve your overall GPA), and add more to your resume to make you a better candidate to be accepted.
Cons:
1. Lose the school and study momentum.
However by taking a gap year that maybe is longer than just a year you could have trouble getting back into the groove with school. It could be difficult to transfer from working in the work field to sitting in a classroom writing papers and taking tests.
2. You may have to retake or redo classes/tests/applications.
Another thing is additionally if you plan on a longer gap year your credits and test scores might end up expiring. Now these durations of acceptable accreditations and scores are different for each program but definitely something that should be researched if you consider partaking in a gap year(s).
3. Adding more time to obtain your degree.
Now although this may be obvious you do have to realize that by taking a gap year you are adding time to actually getting your degree. So instead of only have two to eight years to go it could end up being closer to three to ten years before you actually graduate from your professional school and being your goal career.
4. Possible generation gap
And lastly if you take too much time off, there is a chance that there will be a generation gap between you and your peers. With this generation gap could come other downfalls, besides the obvious age difference, especially if you were not staying current in your field such as the advancement of new technologies, language, equipment, etc.
