Bridging the Gap Year with Global Volunteering

July 9, 2010 - PRLog -- A decrease in university places is leading more young people in the UK to take a gap year to consider their options.  As the productive gap year also becomes more popular in the United States, CEO of educational development charity Lattitude Global Volunteering, Paul Rompani, explores the developing American approach.

Taking a year out between school and university is a rite of passage for many young British people and to many people in the UK the term ‘gap year’ may conjure up the image of taking a year off for an extended holiday to backpack around the world. However, a productive and constructive gap year, taken between school and university or university and the world of work, is much more than a holiday; it offers a variety of educational benefits and presents young people with the opportunity to develop key life skills and to ‘find oneself’.

Students, universities and employers in the USA have begun to embrace the productive gap year as an educational aid and, not surprisingly, their approach is slightly different to the approach in the UK. Rather than a ‘gap’ year, students in the US are encouraged to take a ‘bridge’ year, to help the transition from high school to college or college to the world of work. To appeal to the go-getting students on the fast track to a successful career - and their parents - the gap year is promoted as an additional year of education whereby they will be ahead of their peers, rather than a year behind -  it’s a year ‘on’ not a year ‘off’.

Recently major Ivy League colleges, such as Princeton, Stanford, Harvard and Yale, have begun to encourage young people to take a gap year before beginning college. In 2009 Princeton took this interest a stage further by creating its own international Bridge Year Program, which not only organises the overseas volunteering placements but provides funding to cover the young volunteers’ costs.

The concept has been around in the US for some time. In 1980 the first US gap year consultancy, the Center for Interim Programs, was founded to assist students in making a more effective and constructive transition from high school to college. In 1990 the US Community Service Act defined the term ‘service learning’  as ‘a method under which students can learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organised service that is conducted in and meets the needs of a community’.  

The Ivy League colleges promoting productive gap years and overseas volunteering are acutely aware that carrying out structured tasks as a volunteer or employee in a new and different culture and community maximises the use of time between school and university (or high school and college) and helps to develop some of the life skills that cannot be taught in a classroom.  

Volunteering overseas is a vehicle for service learning, as it helps young people to learn and develop by working alongside and benefitting communities.  A volunteering gap year also helps to ‘foster civic responsibility and enhances the academic curriculum of the students’; additional terms coined by the Community Service Act of 1990.

A gap year offers the opportunity to develop a sense of independence, and often helps people to discover what they want to do when they return. During a gap year, in an environment that may feel less geared toward academia, many young people discover a skill or a passion for something they had never considered studying before (such as teaching, medical care, community or environmental work) resulting in a cohort of more focused students needing less pastoral care and demonstrating a greater commitment to their studies.  

The opportunity for learning and development is not the only reason for these Ivy League colleges’ interest in encouraging potential students to take a bridge year. It’s also about maintaining their excellent reputations and the optimum allocation of their resources.  Many students who do not take a gap year are less mature, less focused, less motivated and less able to make up their minds about what to study. They change their options, drag out their college life and in many cases, they drop out. Statistics of this kind reflect badly. Similarly, many students who don’t take a gap year struggle to cope with the increased stress and anxiety of independent study in a highly competitive environment, particularly if they discover they have little interest in their subjects, and can become ill and, in a few cases, depressed and suicidal. The considerable dependency on pastoral care becomes a concern.

As competition gets stiffer for university places and jobs, a productive year out not only helps a young person to decide what they want to do, but also helps in their university or job application process as it demonstrates skills and a willingness to challenge yourself and is invariably an engaging topic of conversation during interviews.

Volunteering overseas offers an element of life experience, helping young people develop a sense of global citizenship and encouraging understanding of and empathy with diverse cultures.  Both the volunteer and the community he or she works within benefit from the experience.

Lattitude Global Volunteering offers a range of gap year volunteering placements in 20 countries worldwide, including community, care, teaching, environmental and medical placements. The not for profit charity organisation helps almost 2000 young people volunteer worldwide each year.  For further information visit http://www.lattitude.org.uk.

ENDS
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Press enquiries contact:
Molokini Marketing
Jude Mitcham
jude@molokini.co.uk
01903 207 408
http://www.molokini.co.uk

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About Lattitude Global Volunteering: Founded in 1972, Lattitude Global Volunteering (formerly Gap Activity Projects) is a charity specialising in overseas volunteering placements for 17 – 25 year olds from around the world.

Lattitude Global Volunteering has a global network of placements in 20 countries and includes projects in conservation, caring, community, camps and outdoor, medical, sports coaching, teaching, and language assisting. Current destinations include Canada, Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, Ghana, Ireland, Malawi, Poland, Tanzania, South Africa, Australia, China, Fiji, Japan, New Zealand, UK, Vietnam, Vanuatu and India.

Lattitude Global Volunteering is a UK registered international youth development charity (No. 272761), a company limited by guarantee (No. 01289296), a founder member of the Year Out Group, a member of BOND (British Overseas NGOs for Development) and a member of the Foreign Office “Know Before You Go” campaign