5 Reasons You Should Take a Gap Year Before College

Most kids who plan to go to college tend to go immediately after graduating from high school. However, there are also some people who will take a year off between high school and college for a number of ways. It can be hard to steam roll yourself through the academic rungs without coming up for air. If you are feeling overwhelmed with all the pressure to know what you want and how to get it, you might want to take a gap year to get it all sorted out. Here are 5 reasons you should take a gap year before college.Decompress

In some ways your senior year of high school is a lot easier than your sophomore and junior year, but with all the pressure to apply to colleges and figure out your future, it can really feel like a hard push to get through it all. Once you do finish high school, you have to immediately get ready to uproot your entire life and start a new one. If you need some time to recover from all of that hard work and reenergize a bit, you might want to take a year off so you can start college fully energized and motivated to succeed.

2. Gain Real World Experience

If you feel like you know what you want to study, but you have already started working in the field, then you might want to continue with that work for another year before you start going to college. That way, you can go in with a specific idea in mind that you would like to explore. It will also give you a head start among a lot of your peers when searching for a job after graduation.

3. Figure Out What You Want

A lot of people spend so much energy focusing on finishing high school that it can be hard to know what they want in life afterwards. You might not really know much about the various colleges you could qualify for or the different majors that you might like to explore. Do you want a private school or a public school – a big school or a little school? It could be a lot easier to figure that out if you spend a year working and researching your options for college.

4. Save Money

Before you actually start paying tuition on a 4-year college, you might want to spend a year working just to earn enough cash to save up for your first year. You could also start getting some of your general education credits completed online with a school like GWU Online. That way you have the money to pay for the really interesting and memorable classes, and you can save on all of the prerequisites.

5. See the World

Some people take a gap year because they simply need to spread their wings a bit and see another part of the world before they can get an idea of what they want to do. If you have the opportunity to spend some time traveling before you head to college, then you may want to do some soul searching and rose smelling before you jump back into the old grind.