What's a gap year anyway?

Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. Me so free since, which is not true at all, but it does rhyme, so it's catchy. She's it could be maybe me so three since three o'clock yesterday afternoon. Maybe No, that doesn't count because she's still got a little hunk in her teeth. Oh god, so

um Chuck. Yes, we are gathered here today to discuss probably the most important topic we've ever covered, the most hard hitting, timely topic that we've ever taken on. And I'm I'm not sure if we're up to the task, but we're going to give it a try. And what we're talking about today our gap years. Yeah. Did this

remind you to the old days of stuff you should know? Yeah, a little bit, hopefully not the new current days of stuff you should know when the occasional topic would come along, that's uh slight and we and we do it anyway, Yeah, because as everyone knows, but we haven't said it for a while, we are dedicated to explaining absolutely everything in the universe, and that explained that includes gap years. This is a thing. And I should also point out to

the reason I picked this. Uh, it's not a turkey Thanksgiving on the brain, but it's not a turkey now. The reason I picked this was because when I was a teenager, I had never heard of a gap here, and up until very recently, I had heard the term and thought it meant taking a year off after college before you go into the workforce. Uh. Yeah, I did not know you could totally do that if you want to completely ruin your life. Shoot, I didn't. I mean

I didn't enter the workforce allows in my thirties. No, it's true, it's true. I had jobs, right, Yeah, so um, No, it's it's a gap year. From what I understand is, like you said, it's between it's taking a year off between high school and college to do things like find yourself, to make yourself a more creative person, to um see the world, to immerse yourself in other cultures. Maybe volunteer. Yeah,

volunteering is a big one. UM. But the the crux of it is that you are you are becoming a more mature person during this year between high school and college, almost like it's a rite of passage, and that when you're done with this year and you go to enter college, you're a UM, you're much stabler, You've worked on things like grit and resilience and UM, you've you're a much wiser person than you would have been had you just hoped from high school off to college. That's the idealized

version of it. Yeah, that's the idea. UM. I Like I said, I did not know this was an option to me. UM. And maybe that's because I'm a I'm an American like you, because this is not it's gaining some traction in America, but it is certainly not. Uh, we're not gap You're heavy here in the States. It seems to be very popular in Europe, especially among the Brits,

and then especially among the Aussies. They like to take a year off and and go see the world and do stuff and kind of this what they want to do in college. Yeah, And I mean it's been around for a little while, but it really did just kind of stick to the UK and then Australia and even still today. Like I'm sure there's plenty of people who have no idea what a gap here is who are listening to this. Did you do it or I'm not I know you didn't do it, but did you know

this was a thing? Um? No, I didn't. I didn't. I think in the United States it does happen more than we realize, but people don't call it a gap here, and it's not necessarily intentional. Did you take a gap here? No? No,

I didn't. Yes, I did, And I just kind of worked my way through, um and over time, actually going from college college I actually kind of became a much better student than I was had I just followed like a traditional path, um, yeah, where you just go from you know, one high school to your you know college, your choice. Uh. And so I guess I had some of the benefits of a gap here. But I didn't just take a year off and travel or or even

you know, work or anything. He took a year off while you were in school, right, I'm like Van Wilder and Ferris Bueller rolled into one. I will say this, you know, I've I've talked about it before. It took me six years to complete my degree at Georgia, and the first three of those years I had I was completely up to date, and then it took me three more years to get that final year. Well yeah, let's I mean, what was it that stretched it out? I

just I just tapped the brakes. Man. I was having a good time and I dropped my first classes like my junior year. I was like, man, that's that feels good to go to a class once and be like, nah, you know what, I'm not gonna come back. And so after I did that a couple of times, I felt and I was, you know, paying my own way at this point. Um, my parents helped me out the first couple of years, and then I kind of just worked

my way through. But uh, I was like, you know, I'm gonna do it style and I'm just gonna slow my role and I love Athens, and my friends are all here, so I'm just gonna take maybe a class a quarter, maybe two, and it takes me how long you know it's gonna take me? How long it takes me? So that that song don't go back to Rockdale, like really spoke to you, don't go back to Rockville. Well, no,

it was originally Rockdale, it was. It was, Yeah, it was a Michael Stipe song maybe or he had something to do with it, and and they were talking about like Conyers. Oh really, I did not know that. And I the reason I also said Rockdale because I couldn't remember what they ended up naming the song, right, But it really was originally Rockdale. I believe you Rockdale County. So you use the Spicoli method of graduating your senior year? Yeah,

I was. You know, we're gen xers, so we very famously as a generation, weren't like chomping to jump into the corporate workforce when we were twenty two years old, right, we were way too cynical for that. No, man, I had no aims to to get a real job anytime soon. So no, And did you have friends, because I certainly did? Who man? Hit that track? We're in business school, um like had their major completed in like three or three and a half years, maybe went on to get their

m b a. And were miserable by like age twenty two. Well, I knew people. I wouldn't say my close friends, because my close friends were all sort of in my boat, which is to say, the the slow steamer paddle boat that the Colie method at the end of the race. Yeah, but I knew of people who did that, and they, you know, some of them got jobs, you know, like real jobs at twenty three years old. And I just I don't know, it seemed so weird to me at the time, but now that's sort of what it seems

like most people are trying to do. No, it's and it's true. But and I remember, like all of those people are the ones who have had four oh one case for like fifteen years longer than you and I have a good point. But they also, if I remember correctly, we're to a person miserable at least at some point immediately host college. They were not happy people. And a lot of that reason is because you get burnout. And I was researching burnout, and it's definitely a thing. It's

it's it's a it's its own thing. But I couldn't find any studies on like, you know, what was actually going on neurologically or biologically. Now I was kind of hoping, but but it is treated as a real thing school burnout,

study burnout. And there's this idea that if you just kind of hit the books too hard for too prolonged a time, you develop a mental and even physical and emotional fatigue to where your stress levels just as such a high pitch that you're basically your baseline is raised and you're you're cognitively affected your perhaps you develop a

diagnosable mental health disorder. UM. I read that something like a third of students enter in college in some poll taken in the last few years had considered suicide and that they had diagnosable mental health conditions and they attribute

this to burnout. And so that is one of the one of the big marks in the favor of taking a gap year, is this idea that you can you can you know, cut that that cord of straight from high school to college and then into the workforce, um and just just like take some me time and do something different and really explore yourself in the world, and in doing so, you'll kind of recharge your batteries and you can hit college with a fresh start rather than

grinding it out from high school straight into college. Yeah, and I actual should add this. Back when we were in high school and applying to colleges, it was a different deal. Like I, I didn't have to work very hard in high school to get a's and b's. My high school. It was a good public high school, but it was not that challenging. Is that the social experiment high school? Okay, it was just a regular high school.

But do you remember, like didn't you have like no walls and and just did you see all those people who wrote in and said, Josh is right, this is like an actual experiment that was done in the seventies. Well, maybe they'll publish the findings because I didn't you know it was a secret experiment if it was one. But uh, it just wasn't that hard, and so I was never burnt out and felt like, boy, I could use some

time off. And then getting into college was a lot easier back then too, before the Hope scholarship, Yeah, it was. It was not nearly as competitive even for state schools, and um, there are high schools, though, like that are

really tough now. Public high schools. Roswell High School here in the suburbs is notorious for being really really hard and competitive, and like there are seventeen year old kids suffering from academic burnout because of such a challenging environment and then trying to get into the schools, you know, with a you know, I have a four oh, and it's not good enough, and it's like, are you kidding me? Right, it's like a four oh. In our days, you kind of write your ticket, you know, oh, yeah, you go

to Harvard Gale since you had your pick basically. But all that is to say that I get the benefits for sure of a gap here these days, Yeah, because I think what you're saying is that things have changed since we were in high school or college. Yeah, and like it's that I guess it's the whole rise of helicopter parenting, where kids are just like, it's not good enough to have good grades. You have to have a well rounded resume by the time you are trying to

get to college. And yeah, kids are probably way more burned out today than they were back in our day. Back in our day, if you were burned out. It meant you smoked a lot of pots teenager burnout, right, So so there's a gap here. There is such a thing. And like you said, it's it's kind of popular in Britain.

There was a little lull in two thousand eleven, I think between two thousand and eleven and fourteen where it drops significantly, which we'll talk about later, but um, it's studied again and it seems to be a rite of passage among British um high school kids. Uh, that's here to day. It's kind of a thing. Not not everyone does it, in fact, not even close to the majority does it, but a significant amount too. And the United

States is far less. It's something like eleven in the in Britain, two compared to one point two percent in the United States. That was back in two thousand and eleven. And this are sort of old, but I bet it's not too different now, right, Yeah. And the reason why it's is I think it's kind of rooted in that American mentality of like, can you really afford to take a year off? Even if you can afford it financially,

what are you doing to your future? And that's something that people have really started to explore, especially since Malia Obama took a gap year famously back and I think two thousand sixteen. It really kind of called the idea to the attention of Americans more than it happened before. Yeah, she went to she did it through a program, and we'll talk a bit about this. There's a couple of

ways you can do it. You can wing it and do your own thing, or you can actually sign up for a program that will um set you up for your gap year. Used one called Where there Be Dragons. It's a pretty crazy actual name. And she went to Peru and Bolivia and at one point and turned uh sort of unfortunately at the Weinstein Company pre uh you know, scandal right, so um so yeah, but she brought like a lot of attention to the idea of like taking a gap year, and then went to Harvard because this

it's not like she was slouching. And that's sort of the point as a gap here. It doesn't mean you're slouching.

It means you're probably you're probably more of a go getter than somebody who might just go straight into you know, public university, right exactly, that there's this whole kind of an year two at this idea that like you're going to you're so good at this, you can take a year off and go see the world and and really get an idea of how the other half lives before coming in to get your education, in the hopes that your education will now be based on a foundation of

understanding and awareness rather than like entitlement, so that after you do graduate, you can take everything you learned and use your powers for good, like Spider Man. Yeah, you want to take a break. Yeah, let's let's take a break, and then we'll come back and talk about where all this uh laziness started in the nineteen sixties and jo alright, Chuck, So it's kind of appropriate that the gap here started in the sixties. Um there there, you know it was

the sixties. You don't really need to say anything more than that. Yeah, In the United States, our conception of the sixties is pretty close to what happened in the sixties and Great Britain, Um, where the gap here kind of began. Um, And there was already this kind of desire for more and for meaning and spirituality among Western kids that really kind of dates back to the Beat, the Beat generation. Um, who really kind of laid this path. But um, there wasn't anything like a gap here at

the time. And even in the sixties when people started setting up these the thing these programs that would become the foundations of what would become the gap here, um, they still didn't call it a gap here. It was more like a year of giving back, of seeing the world. Um. All the stuff that you would do on a gap here today, they kind of came along in separate little instances that eventually kind of coalesced into this formalized procedure

of taking a gap here. Yeah, and it seems like, um, and we got some of this stuff from there is a website called gap here dot um if you want to know everything you need to know about gap years and uh it seems to have really kicked off in earnest aside from just like sort of hippies going off to find themselves in India in the late sixties and sixties seven with a man named Nicholas McLean Bristol who set up something called Project Trust wherein he took some uh,

some kids to Ethiopia and to do exactly what you do at a gap here, which is to help people out there to learn about the country to sort of, um, devote yourself to them for a period of time, to learn about them and yourself and how to you know, live independently and stuff like that. And after that it seemed like the gap here was really sort of a thing. Yeah, well they made it a thing, like they were the

first ones to establish it. And then so that happened simultaneously to like you said, those hippies going to India to find themselves and following the Hippie trail, and that was that was a thing that was significant. Like there were there were people who would go backpack from London to Catman do in some cases or at least to

goa on the coast of India. They would go through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, they would like hitchhike through these places and um, it was like a real experience to do something like this. So that was going on at the same time that, like the a formal program that introduced the idea of taking a year off and going to you know, volunteer was going on as well. Um. And there was a guy who in the nineteen seventies, I think nineteen seventy three,

his name was Graham Turner. His nickname was screw as k r o O. Uh. Yeah. He bought a double decker bus like a you know, the famous London busses and sold tickets on it and drove from London to Catman Do following that hippie trail and really kind of um spread the word that this was a it was no longer just backpacking. You could take like a tour, an actual tour of us tour down this hippie trail,

and um, he actually ended up founding two companies. One was top Deck Travel which refers to that bus travel, and another one's Flight Center, and they were like the first hippie gap year travel companies that were ever established, which was another big deal to help kind of build this foundation for gap years. Yeah, and he was successful. He was an ausie that was based out of London. But um, I think this the first one was in seventy three and by uh he had between seventy and

eighty of these busses. Yeah, I saw that. So it really really gained steam pretty fast because, like you said, people were doing it anyway and for someone to make it easier on you by formalizing it and saying, hey, we'll take you. Just save up a little bit of money. And you know, these were bus trips, so imagine they were fairly affordable in the seventies and early eighties. Um, so it didn't cost a lot of money and it really made uh gap here's kind of explode at the time. Yep.

And then so you've got all these kind of components revving out there doing their own thing. Um. Another one that kind of came along and helped things was when Tony and Maureen Wheeler um did like a trip to Asia over land. Like they basically backpacked to Asia from I think London, um, and they they made it to Australia, I believe, where they lived for a few years and

got jobs and we're just kind of hanging out. Um. But people they met in Australia kept bothering them for like tips on how to do that same route to Asia. And they ended up putting everything together into a book called Asia on the Cheap and um Across Asia and the Cheap Sorry, and um, they they they wrote it themselves, they published themselves. Um. Tony took it to bookstores and said, hey, I've got this book, you guys want this, And people started buying it, and it became the first title in

the Lonely Planet series. They ended up founding Lonely Planet. Yeah, which is I mean, if you if you're a kid who has put on a backpack, then you have probably uh seen some of the Lonely Planet titles in your in your travels. I never owned one. Uh I think we were me and my buddy where Let's go dudes. So there was another brand called the you know, Let's Go Europe or whatever, Let's go Costa Rica. So we

had Let's Go Europe. But they were definitely Lonely Planet people in the hostels and we used to get into you know, knife and chain fights with them over which was you know, the better the better book series. Yeah, those are brutal fights stuff. But that so that's another thing too. So and so as all this, all these people are kind of contributing these these different pieces, Like

this alternative travel industry is starting to develop. Right where before, if you wanted to go see the world, you really kind of had to pay like a tour operator or a travel agent or something like that. And now if you had the where with all to say, I don't want to do all that tour stuff I want to

see the real world. UM. There was this new kind of industry that was being generated in the late sixties and early seventies, mid seventies at the latest UM that would help you do that, like on the cheap um on your own, like you could buy a Lonely Planet book and follow the guide and just do it yourself.

UM and and all this stuff was new, and so as people started to kind of notice that like, oh, this would this would I could go do this for a year, and maybe a good time to do it would be after high school, this idea of a gap year really started to kind of develop. UM. In nine seven there was a group called the Gap Activity Projects. I think it's called Latitude Global Volunteering now, and they kind of picked up where Project Trust um let off.

And I think Project Trust is still around, so I guess they would be competitors or colleagues or whatever, but where they basically organized tours for people who want to go volunteer or where you just say there's why I want to go and that's what I want to do, and they say, perfect, We'll handle all of your visa applications, will handle all of your plane tickets, will handle your itinerary.

On this day, you're gonna go sight seeing. On this day, you're gonna go, um, you know, help trap poachers on a on a safari um, Like, we'll handle all your stuff for you, exactly. But we'll handle all this stuff for you. It's just give us some money. And that's

really an important point that gets kind of overlooked. Like what this is is a sector of the travel industry, like a booming, thriving sector of the travel industry, where other parts of the travel industry are in real trouble or work for a little while from things like um, Expedia and things that let you do it yourself on the Internet. Yeah, that's what it's called. I had an

aneurism and I thought the Internet was called Expedia. But but you know that kind of I mean, I know there are still travel agents, but the Internet largely helped kill that end street, except for UM, because you used to call a travel agent just to book a plane ticket a lot of times. But what I find hardening, Chuck, is like that the industry and others like it are still around. Like there was a huge transition period where in the Internet disrupted everything from you know, magazines to

to travel industry. Um, but it's stabilized, Like a lot of people have had to go find other work. But there's still a lot of travel agents around and they've like figured out how to carve their own niche and the industry has survived still. So the Internet is not like a cold killer of it did not necessarily mean

the death knell for for all things great. But I think now travel agents are more likely to do for adults what they do for the gap here, which is planned like an adventure for you, and a little less like Hey, I need to fly to Cleveland next week. What kind of flights you got? Yeah, you're kind of a simpleton if you're buying something from a travel agent for that. How do they make their money? I don't even remember. I mean I used travel age. Did they just they had a vig that you had to pay? Yeah?

I would guess it's kind of like something, here's what your package costs, and they, you know, spent X number of dollars putting it all together and added like a ten or mark up onto that and that's what you pay. I don't remember. That's what I would guess. Those were

the days, weren't they. I can't imagine anyone else booking my travel now, Like occasionally through work, we'll have to do something and someone will offer to book travel for us, and where both of us are always like no, no, no, no, no, no, you'll do it wrong. That is the like wakes me up in a cold sweat, is that someone has booked me like a window seat or something. Right, what about my sky mouse? Yeah? That do booked me in a

window seat. Man, I have a bladder the size of like a shelled p I have to sit in the aisle in an hour flight. I'll get up like three times sometimes if I'm not careful. Yeah it was that wasn't you other day? Now? That was someone else someone was asking me about. Maybe it was Anol got you know the old request to swap seats so h they could sit together. Yeah, and no Noll didn't do it and was feeling bad about it, and I made him

feel better about it. You know, that's so funny, Chuck, I've got some bottom mine hoff going on, because you mean and I had a conversation about that, and I've seen on like my Cora newsletter and then another just random searches that has been coming up a lot lately, like people want to know what to say if they don't want to do that. Yeah, I mean no, I think his decision was very cut and dry. It was, you know, a boyfriend and a girlfriend that required Noel

to move from the aisle to the center seat. And I was like, don't feel bad about that, man, Like, they can survive a two hour flight. If it's mommy and little kid, or like elderly couple or something like that, that's that's something that would definitely at least consider, right, But I just want to sit next to my sweetie for the next ninety minutes. I'm like, I'm sorry, we can't be a part. Yeah, you can be a part, yeah, Or you could take another flight that's an option, all right,

or you can stay home. I don't care. It could be nice about it, but yeah, I don't think. Uh. In fact, I's told Noel, I said, they're actually in the wrong for even asking you to do that. A lot of people would argue that. A lot of people would argue that. I mean, like I can see saying, well, this is an aisle for an aisle. Oh I would ask that, but it's like seat aisle for middle now, or you can't you know, like the aisle seat is king, it's the ace, it's the trump card. You can't just

you can't. You can't just willy nilly ask for an aisle seat because there are window people though some people love the window. But what I know there are none of is there are no middle seat lovers. That is absolutely true. Uh so, well, geez man, should we take another break or press on? Uh? Well, maybe let's get through the nineties, um, because the backpacking, the independent back packer thing really came along in the eighties and nineties. Uh,

and much more so in the States. And that was when you it was sort of the salad days of flying because plane tickets were got really cheap there for a while, and it was it was clearly not sustainable because you know, you could fly for two hundred dollars a long way on a flight with like nineteen other people.

And I never had the business sense to look around and be like something about this is not going to end well, um, And you know what happened was they realized they needed to fill up flights and they could charge a lot more and people would still fly. But when flights were super super cheap or they had stuff like air Hitch, which is what I used to go

to Europe. Um. I don't know if they still have air Hitch, but there are a lot of little You bought a coupon basically what for like a hundred and fifty bucks that said, you know, you go to the well basically, you go to the airport on this day and we will it you on some flight to Europe. So it's it's tailor made for the backpacker. He's like, I don't really care where I started, just get me

over there. That's awesome, man. And so they had partner airlines, so you would buy a coupon and then it was very exciting. You would go and you would show up at the airport not knowing where you were going to be that night, and that's pretty cool. It was very cool, and it always worked out. Not so great if you have a meeting in Munich that day. No, no, no no, but because that's really rolling the dice. But it was super cheap. Um, like I think it was like three

d bucks round trip to Europe. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, even in like the eighties or early nineties, that was super cheap. You can't fly to Nashville for that now from Inland, try it. You can't do it. You can't do it.

So um. Yeah, the nineties the nineties kind of saw a bit of an explosion, especially in the UK UM because there was this now kind of structure that people could just kind of jump into and say I'm taking a gap years see you next year, and they could just change what they wanted to do, and they could also find what they needed to do. They could get information a lot more easily thanks to gap year dot Com.

That that website that you cited earlier, that was found and it's widely considered one of the first social media sites. And it's exclusively for people taking gap years, and it always has been and it's still around and they still give great advice on um you know what, what what to do during a gap year, how to do it, how to cut costs? Um, what programs are good, what aren't. It's just a good website. Yeah, So how about we talk about all that stuff after another break? Okay and

things job job sto. Alright, Chuck, another break is coming gone. It's trying to talk again about gap years. Yeah, so first of all, let's talk to parents of kids. UM. If you're a parent, and your kid is talking about taking a gap year. Don't freak out. Um. We we get the inclination maybe to get nervous about what goes on during that year. Will my child ever come back? Are there any dangers, like real you know, concerns. I'm not like dismissing those concerns, but it's it's okay. Your

your kid most likely is going to come back enriched. Um. And they've done studies that found that kids do better in that first year of college. A lot of them have. I think they zero in on their major more quickly after doing a gap year. Yeah. One thing I saw on that note, Chuck, was that, um, there was a Wall Street Journal article about gap years, and they profiled a woman who had gone to India to help bring solar power to a village and had lived an attempt

for a few weeks. It was like, I hate this more than anything I've ever hated before, and I'm not doing this. And so she figured out during her gap year that she didn't want to do that. Whereas if she had gone to college, um, straight out of high school, she would have applied herself to that, gone through college and then gone and done that and found out that

she hated it. So she said, in that sense, this gap year saved her about two hundred grand and four years interesting by telling her what she didn't like exactly, which is a really good point. I mean, like you mostly you learned what you do want to do, or it helps you. I think there's some statistic that shows something some high percentage of children who go on a gap year have their um their path forward reinforced from

that gap here. But I'm sure there's a significant number of people are like, I don't want to help people. I'm a missing another concerned parents might have. As you know, there's so much focus on the resume for that college application, and gap years look great on a resume. Now, um colleges get it, and a lot of colleges, if you're accepted, can't even defer your uh, your start by a year

if you want to go on a gap year. So they really are trying to work hand in hand with high school students to say get out there, volunteer, immerse yourself into culture, and like come back and see us when you know when you're nineteen and you're not just you just don't want to like funnel beer all the time.

Because you're fresh out of the house, right, and like some some colleges get it so much that like, for example, Princeton not only has like a deferment program where you can say I'm in, I'll be, I'll see in a year, I'm gonna go take a year off, they say, well, wait, we actually have a project or a program that helps you go do that stuff for the gap year. And

it's you know, through the university and FSU. Florida State University has a program where if you defer for a gap year, you're automatically considered for financial aid to help you in your gap here. Cool, yeah, it is pretty cool. They also have a clown school, don't they, f S you does? Isn't Florida State Don't they have like a circus college or I mean, it would makes sense because Florida is like traditionally like the state where circuses went and took a rest for the Really, yeah, I didn't

know that, Well that makes sense. I wonder if I'm gonna have to look that up. I don't know. I know there's something some kind of circus school in Florida, but it may not be tied to Florida State. I

could be though it very welcome to be so. There's a book that a woman named Kristen White wrote called The Complete Guide to the Gap here where she talks about some of the things you can do that aren't just like partying around the world, and volunteering is of course one of those things, as well as living with a family and another culture. That's one of the best ways to really learn about a new place is to live with a host family. Can i um? Can I?

Also add on gap year dot com there was an opinion piece that said, if you really want to live like a local, because that's a big, big buzz term for a gap year people is learning to live like a local. To really immerse yourself, they say, get an international internship, like go work and you have to like get up at a certain time, you have to get on the subway. You have to find like a favorite restaurant,

you have to go grocery shopping. Like That's how you truly live like a local in your gap years, to have responsibilities that the locals have, then you can genuinely understand it. Plus there's all, you know, tons of other benefits to like you get paid, um, you make business contacts in other countries, which can be very valuable. It's uh they they said that's the best best way to do it, And as an American, I'm like, yes, I'll bet that is the best gap here there is working. Well.

I mean, here's the thing. There are certainly plenty of programs where you can volunteer and do a service here and those are great. Um, but you can also, like, you know, it's not selfish if you're an artist and you want to go live in in France and paint for a year and learn at the side of a mentor all those things are great, you know. It's it's whatever you think is going to enrich you in your

future is what you should concentrate on. Yes, some people like take a year off to learn an instrument or to write a novel. Um. There's a lot of gap here programs that are geared towards things like helping the environment or helping science. Um to where you might be doing surveys underwater surveys of coral reefs to track like coral bleaching, or like I said, there's there's some programs where you combat poachers by finding snares and um and

undoing them to stuff like that. So like there's a lot of a lot of training you can do where if you know, like you want to be an environmental scientist, you can actually go get field work to prepare you for your career down the road, or again find out that you actually don't want to be an environmental scientists who has to do field work. Um, so there's like this benefit of of not just going and spending a year in Abitha and doing as much ecstasy as you

can stay alive before you go to college. That's that's how some people do it, I think, but they're like the go getters are like, no, this is what I think I want to do. I'm gonna go try it out firsthand and then go learn how to do it in college and tell my professors how they're teaching it wrong because I've been there and done it and I have life experience that they don't. Yeah, and like we said, there's not a ton of studies, but they have. We

talked a little bit about some of the results. Um, there are other surveys that said, you know, they say you're gonna come back feeling very independent, more mature. Uh, You're gonna have more motivation to learn and a stronger interest in school. Um, I think that one you were talking about six said their a gap here confirmed their

career path. And then one study out of Australia said, uh, if you were a gapper, then you outperform your peers in that first semester of college and overall have better

college grades. Yeah. Um, Middlebury College in Vermont did a poll and found that their gap your students outperformed non gap your students by zero point one to zero point four on a four point oh scale, which is significant, especially zero point four, but even more significant that that effect lasted like all four years of college rather than

just that first year. Right. And uh, it might have been the same study, but that was that one combined with the University of North Carolina that said it even helps post graduate. The post graduate get a higher rate of job satisfaction. Right, so it kind of set you up. It even said that in retirement you're happier. It said that when you die, your last words will invariably be thank god I did a gap here. Um. Here's the thing, though there are like it sounds like the perfect thing

for everyone. I can see situations where if you are in a super tight knit senior class, and a lot of those kids are going to the same college. You might really feel like you've been left behind a bit if they all go to you know, State University and you're off in Ethiopia. Um. So I get that. Um. They They also say in this article from how Stuff works dot com about maybe getting a little rusty study wise. I don't really buy that. I've seen that elsewhere though.

Really is that a thing. It's like, Hey, you might be learning you know, Swahili, and that's great, but what you're probably not doing math at the same time too. Yeah, I guess you can get little rusty. I just remember at that age, just your brain is so plastic. No,

it's true, you know. Particularly, Yeah, you pick it back up pretty quick, I would guess, though, Although there is that whole thing, The whole reason that they use for um shortening or lengthening the school year, in shortening summer is the idea that you lose so many of the things you've lost ust over a long summer. So um and yeah, imagine a year. You know. There's also this whole scariness of like competing in the job market and can you really afford to delay entering the job market

for a year. Yeah. But I mean, like there's a real that's a very American fear. Um, Like, no, you're setting yourself back. You gotta stay competitive, you gotta stay in the game. You can't just take a year off and go find yourself. Who taught you that, you hippie? Um, that's that's a real, like American thought. And so there are like real, I like fears among say parents of

kids who want to take a gap Here. There's also criticisms of the idea of a gap year in general, from not not even necessarily people who are involved in it, just externally, people who say, this is something wrong with this. This stinks of privilege. If you ask me, Yeah, I get that, because you know, they're generally not cheap. Um, if you can afford to take a year off and do anything for a year where you're not getting paid, then there's got to be some privilege attached to that. Yeah,

there's um that's one. Uh. There's there's another, uh charge of neo colonialism, where there's this idea of um, you know, Western kids finding themselves by dropping themselves temporarily in the destitute lives of other people around the world. Leave in twelve points exactly. They could walk out that day and they'd be fine. But you know they get to take a few selfies with some underprivileged children in Africa and post them and change their profile picture, and you know,

what right do they have to go do that? UM. That's a big one that gets levied against it, and it's a big point of debate debate because it's not you can't just subjectively say that that's correct or incorrect. And you know, there are some elements of neo colonialism

to it, and it can be done wrong. But people who defend the idea of gap years, especially you know, volunteering on gap year UM will say, no, there's there are a lot of very ethical gap year tour companies that take that stuff into consideration and won't put you in that situation where if you're going to help, you're

actually going to help. And there's this famous UM I think it was posted on huff PO, a famous article UM called Little White Girls, Boys and volun Tourism, and the writer was a gap year student who basically was like, no, this is wrong, like this this isn't actually helping like the people who you know, we're helping with these community construction projects are having to go back and renail these two by fours because the people who are doing this

are just teenagers who don't know what they're doing. We've never been trained to do this. So not only are we not helping, we're actually slowing things down. And apparently people who are the recipients of this aid from gap year programs are don't feel like they're in a position to be like, thanks, but no thanks thanks for the garbage house, right, you know, or thanks for your charity, but but go to hell. They don't feel like they're

in a position to say that. So, um, there is this idea of Westerners, um uh pressing themselves on the lives temporarily of people who who are in developing countries that don't even necessarily want the help but but could still use it if it, you know, or don't feel like that they're in a position to say no, Yeah, I mean I would like to thank for every kid that's uh there for the selfies, there's another kid who may go on to not even go back to college

and make that their life's work. You know. Yeah, I think it's probably a much higher ratio than that. I get the impression that the kids who actually go do the volunteering for gap year are actually starting to like dip their toe into a career in an NGO where they will go on and help people, and that they do take it very seriously. It's just the ethics among tour operators has changed and improved in the last couple

of years from what I understand. Yeah, and if you think that you want to pursue life working for a nonprofit and doing this kind of work, like you should get out there and test the waters first before you make any big decisions, because it's not for everyone. It is very emotionally challenging and physically challenging stuff. And spending a year doing it can uh either way. If it's confirming, great, If it's confirming that you it is not for you,

then that's great as well. Right. And the author of The Little White Girls Boys and Volunteerism, Uh, she said, stop and ask yourself a really important question. Will the project that you're working on be better off if you're they're helping? Yeah? Will they benefit from your presence? Uh? Huh, like what like would they have trouble completing it without

your help? And if the answers yes, she says, then go for it, UM, But if the answers no, then maybe reconsider or what you're doing, or take the time to go learn that skill first so that you are actually helping. And it's the author's name is PIPA Biddle, which is maybe the most British name anyone's ever given their child. So if you are planning to do a gap year, UM, take some time to really think about how you want to do it, because there are myriad

ways and directions that you can go. Think about what you want to get accomplished, whether it's learning how to paint better or volunteering or helping the environment, and then apply to college. You don't want to put that off. You want to go ahead and apply to college. So hey, you know what where you want to go? When you get back and be like we're talking about their they might have programs in place that can really help you

out and really get structured about what you want to do. UM. And if there's high school kids listening, like this is especially important. And if you want to sell your parents on this idea, like don't just throw it out at the dinner table one night, Hey, what do you think about a year off? Like come with a plan in place, and like that is the stuff that will impress your parents, right exactly, because you can plan your own gap here.

But whether you whether you take a planned tour, a pre plan tour, or a planet yourself, there does have to be structured. Else again, you end up in a bitha for a year um or or some people apparently will just sit around and watch Netflix or play video games for a year. That's the exact opposite of what you want to do. Like, you want to do something.

It doesn't have to be like the most highly charged, helpful volunteering um type of program you could possibly engage in, but it also you actually you want to do something that's enriching yourself at least. Yeah, I mean you can. You can walk around Europe with a backpack on your on your back just meeting people. Sure, I mean that's fine too. Just don't don't play video games ever. But well, you know what I'm saying. I know that they get a bad rap unfairly a lot, but it's a it's

it's code for laziness. Uh. If you are if you kind of focused your sights on something, try and find out as much as you can about the place, the program as in not just a little research on the internet, like see if you can talk to someone who's done it and really know what you're getting into. Like what is a day like UM building houses in a developing nation? Like what kind of hours am I going to be

putting in? Am I up to that task? Because like we've been saying here, you're not only not gonna do yourselves any favor, but you're gonna be a burden on that program if you get down there and you're you know, extra weight. Yeah. So one of the other things that UM parents are probably very fearful of when their kids says gap here, UM. They they can cost quite a

bit writing a big check. This how stuff Works article says thirty to forty grand I'm sure that it's more than that by now, because I think it's a few years old. UM. But there's ways you can offset that cost. There are gap year UM programs that you can engage in that are way cheaper than that. Some are free and some I think AmeriCorps or City Year or they might be the same thing. One of those guys actually pays you a stipend of fifty dollars at the end

of the year. Which is I mean, if you think of it as a the pay for a year's worth of work, that's terrible. This is but this is um like it's mental help offset your tuition and say like, hey, hey, good job, way to go, you did it. Um. But there are but they don't charge you a dime. And some other places also will will give you free room

and board, typically with local families. So not only are you getting free room and board as part of the program, UM, you're also immersing yourself in that culture by living with that family. Yeah. And sometimes universities even have programs where you can earn school credits UM that not necessarily that you can just take anywhere it that you can use for your specific university that you have pledged to attend.

I saw somewhere though, that you want to be very careful with that because if you do a deferment program where you say, I'm applying to college, great, I got in. I'm going to take a year off for a gap year, and they say, Okay, some universities aren't okay with you taking uh credit courses at another accredited university, or you want to check with them first before you do that. I think that's it you got anything else? Got nothing else? Do it? Kids? Gap it up? Yeah, And if you

took a gap year, let us know. We want to hear about it, how it affected you or didn't affect you or whatever. Okay, I agreed. Uh, if you want to know more about gap years, actually we can send you to how Stuff Works and you can check out this article on that site. And since I said how stuff works, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this one. What am I getting all this one? Oh?

Cockney rhymings slang. All right, We've got a lot of feedback about that, a lot of angry Brits, a lot of Brits with good senses of humor that knew that we were going to botch it. Probably I didn't see any angry Brits. Did we have any rings? I think a lot of kind of jokingly angry Brits. But this is from a Nazi said they're never angry. Nope. Hey, chaps love the episode, And like Josh, I knew immediately after Chuck tried his hand at Cockney that he sounded

like someone famous. Michael Caine was a solid guest, but I was thinking Mike Myers as Austin powers. He says for what it's worth. Rhyming slang is wildly prevalent amongst cricket players in Australia. Back when I used to play competitively, it was at once a science and an art form, either developing or deciphering their slang being used by the teammates.

By your teammates. It often took many forms, including traditional slang like butcher's hook for look, or he's had an absolute Barry meaning shocker, I e. A poor performance taken from the Australian comedian and actor Barry Crocker. It's a deep cut. The names of some of famous players being used as descriptions also, such as David Boone for tunes put on some David Boone's I guess David Boone is

a famous cricketeer. Sure, as you might imagine, when you're all spending all day standing in a field and the Aussie sun, or watching others do that from the sidelines, you look for any activity to keep your mind engaged. Rhyming slang was a hilarious mainstay in that respect. Enough for me, keep up the good work, guys. You're my daily dose of a good old bubble. Bubble baths. We're a bubble bath for for Tom mcglasson in Sydney, Australia.

Thanks Tom, that was a great one, much appreciated. Thanks to everybody who wrote in about the Cockney rhyming slanging episode. It did generate a ton of emails, didn't it It did, strangely. If you want to generate a ton of email for us, you can start by going to Stuff you Should Know and follow us on our social links there. You can also send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production

of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.