Why take a gap year after university?
Taking a gap year after university can have a positive impact on your future career plans as long as you do it properly. Taking time out after almost 18 years of continuous can be a blessing in disguise, it can help provide clarity and open up new avenues for your future career.
REMEMBER: A gap year doesn’t always mean travelling because that can be expensive, it might mean doing a local internship in an industry that you never considered or volunteering at a local charity. However, travelling can be a great way to improve your resilience, gain new life skills, take a break to recharge, gain work experience, and more!
what are The Advantages:
Improve Your Resilience:
Resilience has become a big talking point over the last few years and is an important skill when entering into the world of work. Workplaces are ever-changing and can be stressful at times. Travelling is a great way to build up your resilience, particularly if you’re travelling in developing countries or volunteering in environments where there are limited resources.
Gain Life Skills:
You’ll learn how to budget when planning a gap (particularly if you’re going travelling or living with friends), you’ll use your initiative, develop valuable communications and learn how to put your university knowledge into practice! All transferable skills that you can add to your CV.
Recharge:
After spending almost 18 years in education, it can feel both exciting and daunting to leave the security of an educational setting and unnerving to enter into the professional world for the first time. Taking some time out to recharge whilst closer to home or escaping to a secret beach to relax on whilst travelling, can be a great way to recharge and reflect on your experience. You could spend this time honing your CV without the pressure of graduating or go on a course you’ve always wanted to go on, or volunteer abroad.
Gain Work Experience:
These days almost everyone wants to see work experience on your CV and whilst your hospitality job alongside your study counts, it can be good to gain some industry experience. You could do this during your university summer holidays, during your course in your free time or you could take a gap year and put your skills and knowledge into practice. Keep in mind if you’re going to take a gap year after university to have things lined up to make sure you don’t waste the year working in a job that won’t support the progression of your career. You could vary the year with getting involved in different volunteer projects and internships, TSAP Travel Madagascar Adventures can help you put a bespoke plan of action together to make sure you get the most out of your experience and support you plan for the rest of the year.
Raise Your Cultural Awareness:
Whilst you don’t have to spend your gap year abroad, if you do you’ll live and work alongside local people, allowing you to experience different cultures and expand your network of friends across the globe. Knowing lots of people when looking for a job, is invaluable, as you’ll never know where they’ll end up and what opportunities may arise.
Are there any disadvantages:
It can be hard to justify:
If you don’t plan your gap year effectively, it can be hard to justify the value of your time away from education/industry. So make sure you create a plan of action and get help from organisations like TSAP Travel to plan your trip and your outcomes for your CV and interviews.
It can be expensive:
Especially after spending 2-4 years at university and the travel costs incurred when you’re travelling, mean taking a gap year straight after university might not be possible. However, excessive travel costs can be avoided by participating in volunteer programmes abroad and fundraising to cover the costs but make sure you do your research!