After years of hard work, most students feel great relief when college has finally come to an end. All the days and nights of stress, exhaustion and anxiety are suddenly wiped away by a magical sheet of paper called a diploma. But what's next?
Many graduates waste no time and jump right into an entry-level position, either forced by bone-crushing debts or motivated by real money-earning opportunities.
But not Christian Knightly. After graduating from UCF in 2005, he sold his car, canceled his lease and traveled around the world for six months. In other words, Knightly took a "gap year."
Becoming popular in the 1990s, a gap year is when a student takes a break between college and finding a job, and it rarely lasts the whole 12 months.
The possibilities are endless, and so are sources to find them.
Whether it's a volunteering program in Africa, a high-paid yet heavy-duty job as a tree-planter in Canada or simply an extended vacation, Web sites like yearoutgroup.org or findagap.com offer information on just about anything. Adventure and exploration are the key aspects.
Looking back on his trip, Knightly had both. Within half a year, he discovered the different cultures, habits and languages of the Ukraine, Poland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Germany, Kenya, and Egypt.
Through an online community where people from all over the world offer travelers a place to stay for free, Knightly found a way to avoid hotel costs, which left him only with expenses for flights and food.
"I could stay with friends everywhere," he said. "That's why I did it."
Hanging out with locals showed him a different side of the towns he stayed at, a side he would not have seen had he been an average tourist.
In fact, the whole trip changed his view on things.
"It exposed me to the world," he said. "I feel America is very cut off from the world. We all live in one giant bubble where we have everything. We can get whatever we want whenever we want. In other countries, it's just not like that."
Online groups specializing in gap years don't just list opportunities, they also pitch them to students.
The online forum gapyear.com started a contest in which people get to travel on a free inter-rail ticket through Western Europe and Morocco for a month if they are willing to write and publish a diary on the company's homepage.
Gapyearjobs.co.uk is looking for volunteers to build houses and classrooms in Ghana. The Web site can't offer money, but it can promise an experience different from the usual.
Learning how to make bricks out of a mud press and facing the sorrow and poverty Ghanaian people live with may make volunteers appreciate the fine life they have at home.
And the Discovery Channel takes the term "job adventure" to a new level with its show The Deadliest Catch. There, people can apply to spend a season on a ship on Alaska to catch crab. The salary is phenomenal, but the risks are enormous too.
Whether a gap year means a growth in money or life experience, it can benefit one's resume when put in the right light.
"Anything that broadens your perspective or gives you new insight that you might not otherwise have had is going to be a good thing," said Christine Willard, adviser at the UCF Career Resource Center. "As the world becomes more global, employers are going to look for that more and more."
Willard said that while the CRC does not offer programs specifically focused on gap years, students should carefully choose the right activity for some time off.
"It would depend on what you are going to do, how you are going to use the time and how you leverage it to employers," she said. "By not going right into the work force, you are taking yourself out of the work force."
An alternative to later having to explain to a potential employer how months of traveling enlarged a student's horizon is to include the employer in the planning period.
"If you are talking to an employer and you know about [your gap year] already, you could negotiate your start day," Willard said. That way a student would get to take his time off and have a job when returning, she said.
These considerations never crossed Knightly's mind. "I wanted a fresh start when I came back," he said.
At first, it wasn't all that fresh. After returning to the U.S. and in need for money, Knightly resumed his college job at the print center at Office Max. Two months back into his old routine, a customer, impressed with Knightly's performance, offered him a full-time job as a graphic artist.
Knightly, whose degree is in Liberal Studies, took it.
Be the first to comment on this article!