Taking a year off...
 

I took a year off from after graduating from what the school system deemed "High School". This is a good thing and a bad thing. I would like to show a list of pros and cons and well as give advice to those considering, or to those who know someone who is considering taking a year off.

Pros
-no school!
-If you have a job, you get to make alot of money
-It is a well deserved rest
-You get to discover what you really want to do without pressure from school
-You have a new found respect for people in the real world

Cons
-No plan for the entire year
-You're pressured in a different way
-Most of your friends will be gone due to college or high school
-You have to learn how to deal with working for the rest of your life

There are probably plenty of other pros and cons, but those are the ones i'm focused on.

I personally am glad I took the year off, but if I could go back, i'd take a few precautions first:

1.Be Prepared to loose friends. It's going to happen even if you go to college, but at least you'll make other friends in college.
2. Make sure you have a license and a car. This way you can go out and find new friends. I still don't have my license, and regret not getting it before.
3.Make sure you have a job. You'l go crazy without one. And by job, I mean a real one.
4.Make sure to make a deal with someone that says you have to go back to school after the year or else....Just in case. It's easy to loose yourself in a world full of money and social life.

That's about it. Number 2 I really kick myself for, because now I don't have many friends left and during the week, no one to hang out with but my computer. Not to mention West Hartford doesn't allow bars or anything involving entertainment. I'm serious. I'm not legally allowed to drive, so that's a big problem. I'm working on it though. The dmv's as slow to mail things as they are to solve your problems.

"Some days we don't let the line move at all. We call those weekdays."
-Selma at the dmv (Simpsons)

As a suburban kid, I really don't understand people who didn't learn to drive and get licensed at 16 ... what motivates, or actually demotivates that? Why didn't you go do it at the earliest possible opportunity? One of my friend's sister's didn't learn to drive until she was in her mid to late 20s ... both siblings had their permits at 16 and junior licenses three months later. Why wait?

I have some family with 5 people in the house and one available car. That's dad's car cuz he commutes the farthest. Mom's job is on a bus line. The middle schooler buses, the high schooler carpools with a neighbor's kid and the eldest also works on a busline (and still lives at home). Also, money's tight, so the one who uses the car has to pay for the gas. And since there's clothes and video games to be bought, the kids figured out how to get around without having to use a car. The ones of age have gotten licenses for ID but don't care to drive. It's easier and cheaper for them to use public transit or bum rides off friends/neighbors.

If they are licensed, they have to be insured, and that's not cheap for a new driver. I can understand the economic aspects of that ... but you're talking about people who don't drive, but know how. I'm talking about people that haven't even bothered to learn.

Whatever happened to "whoo-hoo! 16! Driver Ed!!"?

Couldn't say...I just know I was one of those kids who's been just itching to drive since the car seat.

My car seat, like Maggie Simpson's, had a steering wheel and a horn on it. It was quite some time before I figured out that I wasn't driving.

I never had a need for it. Always had older friends who all had cars and drove me around. Later on it became a money issue. Also the stick shift kinda intimidated me a little I think. Now I don't have a problem driving, I just have to wait for the paperwork to process before I can do anything else. My sister didn't get her license until she was 19. She cant live without her car now. I work less than 100 yards from my house too.

I had my license at 17, but we just had the one family car. I got to use it once in awhile, but not very often.

You can ride MILES on a ten speed bike. Don't you have a bike? I didn't have a car until after college. I went to the mall (the only place for a teenager to go) just about every day. It was 3 miles away. 6 miles round trip. Or you can get a used moped/scooter for cheap.

Where I live if I drove 200m towards the city centre I've got to pay a ~$12 congestion charge. Why would I take a car when I can get there in half the time with a tenth of the stress by PT?

I grew up in DC, near a subway stop. I never felt the need to deal with the DMV. I got my license a week before I had to start commuting to work, and got my car the same day.

I'm against the idea of "taking a year off" for its own sake. I know some folks that age still don't have a sense of who they are, and all that, but to me the decision should be more "Am I going to college, or am I going to enter the workforce?" Both of which are completely legitimate goals--but if you feel the need to promise someone that you will go to school after the year is up, that just says to me that you should have been going to college in the first place.

If you have the drive and desire and ability to go to college, why put it off a year? If it's just to learn what it's like to have a job--you can have a job while you go to college. Everyone I know who "took a year off" considers it a wasted year once they're far enough away to look back on it.

Growing up, I knew a family where all the kids had to take a year off between high school and college. The parents made them, because they felt that working that one year would show their kids what kind of work was available for someone with only a high school diploma. They figured that it would be good motivation to stay in college and do well. Also, they thought that taking a year off would give the kid a chance to mature and spend less time partying in college. The parents didn't want to pay outrageous amounts of money just to let ther kids party for four years.

I think that for three of the four kids it worked. For the fourth, who went to my college, it didn't. He was not a serious student. He turned out alright in the end though.

My car seat, like wolf's, had a steering wheel and a horn on it. It was quite some time before my parents figured out they weren't driving.

I did not take a year off and in retrospect, think I really could have used it. I would not have lived at home though.
Looking back, the best thing for me at that time would have been to leave town and get a shit job, paying my own way and figure out WHY I wanted to go to school.
I did leave town, got a part time shit job and undirected, unmotivated and unprepared for college, I landed myself on academic probation. I blew a year of college money..to say nothing of the battle to build a decent GPA over the next years. To be fair, I did learn a lot about me self because of the cost.

Having a job while in college isn't the same thing as doing nothing but working. The idea is to build yourself up so that when you get out of college, you're not lost then. I see so many people who go straight into college, and once they get out of college, they get lost. They're so afraid that they take the closest job they can find. Some people learn it later on, most don't. Most people are dis-satisfied with the way their life has played out.

If you learn how to be yourself and learn what you want, without the boundaries of school or a degree, then you're one step ahead of everyone else. I'm not saying school is a bad thing, i'm just saying that school has a way of taking away a certain aspect of who you are. I don't see innovators anymore. I don't see the creativity anymore. I see an educational assembly line full of students turned into worker bees. I feel as though taking a year off is a wonderful chance to get out into the real world and understand that there's more options out there for career's, life styles, fortunes, misfortunes , love, lost, than just what you see in school.

I dunno. Maybe i'm making a big deal out of a small potato. I just felt as though if I didn't take a step back to review my options and goals now, that my whole life would flash before me and all I would be left with is shame, doubt, and regret.

I would also like to point out that when I got out of high school, I wanted to go into networking, because of the money. I was born a cop. Since the beginning of my year off, i've embraced who I really am and feel as though i'm more sure of what I want in life than i've ever been.

And you know what, I'll bet it wasn't a wasted year for them. I'll bet they just don't realize what it did for them.

Well, come back after you're done with your first year in college, and let us know if it worked for you.

As for the perceived lack of creativity and assembly-line education, rest assured that generations of 18-year-olds before you have felt the same way. It's a symptom of your age, not the times we live in. College certainly can be that way, or it also can be the perfect environment in which to "find yourself" because you're surrounded with a wide variety of people your own age with different experiences.

So, it wasn't clear to me: are you going to be a cop, or are you going to go into networking?

Well there's always cybercrime. Prevention, I mean.

My son is considering the same thing. With the options that are out there, I might even agree if he agrees to work during his time off from college. I ended up going to college and trade school for computing, so I don't have any bias towards either.

BTW, Stratus, I'm not sure if you wanted to use the phrase 'loose friends'. You generally lose friends. Using loose as a verb implies unleashing or setting a restrained animal (or person) onto a target, as in let loose the dogs of war. If you do a google search for "loose upon" you will see some examples in sports reporting.

Of course, with everyone calling their friends 'dogs' or 'posse' these days, you could make an argument for saying "While I stayed home, I let loose my friends upon an unsuspecting flock of colleges and universities." ;)

Maybe Stratus is a friend of the Prez. :lol:

Heh, way to miss the point!

The point being......

Ambition
 

At that age, I recommend focusing on ones ambition. And if one lacks ambition, go to school if it is available.

If one has some thing one must do, besides school, and if one needs some time to test out this thing, do it, by all means.

Apply oneself as hard as one can, time is not plentiful. If one applies themselves full steam during youth, one can accomplish much in a short time.

At my age, my education is my most valuable asset and it made my favorite memories.

If I was going to take a year off now, I would use it to go to school.

Obviously, being able to communicate effectively, it's not, Rich. ;)

I agree with you 100 percent. Most people my age do not understand that if things are done at an early age, things are much easier. I wish my parents had taught me french when I was younger, as they had been taught. Now I have to do it the hard way. A child's mind is a spunge. With time that spunge begins to harden and does not absorb as it once did.

I did have things I needed to do, and still do. I'm certainly glad I took the time to do those things.

oh, come on - it can't bethat hard to learn french. start with the basics, like "i hate america", then move on to "Americans are so uncivilized", then for your graduate work "yes Mr Annan, you can skim millions as long as Mr Chirac gets his cut" with those phrases in your vocabulary, you will be golden. oh yeah, don't forget "bush is stupid'

I was about to make some smart-ass comment about how they teach vocabulary in college, but then I looked up spunge.

My bad.


Anyway, I think that taking a year off won't really matter one way or the other. It's not wasted time, but it's not likely to cause some profound directional shift in your life, either. At the end of the year, you'll probably still want to be a cop, but take the networking job because it pays well. And life will be happening in the meantime. You might fall in love, lose a limb, win the lottery, or otherwise be inconvenienced. So don't sweat it. Just do what you think you ought to, and understand that if it doesn't work out, you might have to take door #2. One's "happiness" is independent of this decision, IMO.

dammit. i've forgotten how to be sarcastic and biting.

I went straight to college from high school - I never considered a year off, nor would I - but the real decision came after graduating in May 2003. I was in such a rush to get places that I was perpetually impatient. My best friend pointed this out when he said to someone that I thought "life was going to go on without me." He's absolutely right. I was so terrified that I would get left behind that I was constantly paranoid about what I would do or where I would live next.

I did it all - left my first gig for a job at a big company, moved to New York City - but in hindsight I really don't know to where I was in such a rush to go. Not that I don't have plenty of time ahead of my 24 years on this planet to slack off and do other things, but all this stress over the past year and a half has actually kind of ruined my post-college experience.

So, while I don't personally condone taking a year between high school and college (college is SOO freakin easy and it's so much fun - why not go right away?), my point is that one should not wear oneself thin thinking about what one *should* or *should not* be doing with one's life. At least not for now. Just enjoy it. Find something to do and do it. Life will always be there when you're done finding yourself. Why I plan to run away and bike in the alps for a few years while attempting to be some sort of photojournalist.

That's really pretty. Did you make that?

Breakingnews: I appreciate your opinion. I do believe that for alot of people it is a good idea, and of course, for alot of people it is a bad idea.

School should be fun and easy! Unfortunately for many, school has become a challenging and tough place to be. Advanced placement this, honors that, etc... I guess that's always existed though. I just don't think there needs to be such a rush for education, In my opinion.

:headshake

Kids today.

Please use your year off exposing yourself to music recorded before you were born.

Thank you.

I don't know, Wolf, think he can find the time to do that?

If he has the money it will be easier.

Oh stop the condescension already. Kids today are no different from kids in the past, they are confused and rightly so. At least give Stratus credit for asking instead of just blundering along when he's not sure.
Stratus, that was a Pink Floyd song glatt posted. Shame on you for not knowing the words to every song that was recorded before you were born. :lol:

hahaha seriously. I'll bet he cant quote any lyrics from modern music!

I tend not to listen to lyrics as much as the beat and how it makes me feel. I listen to PF all the time, i'm just not good at recognizing songs by their lyrics. I'm the kind of person who can hear the first three seconds of a song and know what it is.