Why students should take a gap year before college Essay

Why students should take a gap year before college - Essay Example Yet, there do happen to be many discerning students who take time to sort out their priorities in life. Such students do prefer to think in a more serious and concerted manner as to their expectations from and outlook towards a college education. In that context, taking a year off before college allows such students the time and the space to ponder about their future goals and aspirations in a more serious and dedicated manner. This allows them to step aside for sometime from the usual societal and academic trends, to chalk out their future course in consonance with their own values and needs. Hence, a gap year before college could indeed turn out to be fruitful and beneficial. Thereby, students should take a year off before college to gain maturity, build real world social skills, and reinforce the selection of their major. Ralph happened to be one of such student who was typically bothered by a sense of purposelessness, as he finished the high school. There was a side of him that eagerly desired to join college, as most of his friends were doing. But, there was also a facet of Ralph’s personality that wanted to spend some time sorting out his priorities and expectations from life. Luckily Ralph’s parents did not press him as he decided to take a year off after high school. Since long Ralph had been thinking of traveling to Spain. This gap year facilitated Ralph with the requisite time and opportunity. Ralph did some research on the social networking sites and joined a group of American gap year students visiting Spain. The six months that Ralph spent in Spain completely changed him. Ralph not only ended up becoming a more mature and independent person, but he also gained a reasonable level of proficiency in the Spanish language. In Spain Ralph learnt to appreciate cultural diversity and learned to get along with people from different cultures and