Year Out, Gap Year Advice.. Recommendations?

The thought of backpacking around the far east and Australia never appealed to me at the time, it seemed like something only posh people could do wasting a year of their lives tossing it off although that was back in the 1990's before the internet would make such a thing easy to do I imagine. None of my mates did it either apart from those who took a job for a year working at the likes of British Steel or ICI. When I got to University lots had done it though but then it was full of posh people.
 
If he's only 17 now, I suggest holding his gap year until after he graduates. You mature a lot between 18 and 21, I don't think someone of 17 is quite ready for a year of fending for himself abroad somewhere.

I'd endorse the Camp America thing. I went, worked until the middle of September, then toured, then got some menial jobs in New York City, then toured some more, worked some more, and so on. Before I knew it, I'd been there for a year.
 
gravy173 said:
The thought of backpacking around the far east and Australia never appealed to me at the time, it seemed like something only posh people could do wasting a year of their lives tossing it off although that was back in the 1990's before the internet would make such a thing easy to do I imagine. None of my mates did it either apart from those who took a job for a year working at the likes of British Steel or ICI. When I got to University lots had done it though but then it was full of posh people.
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Your right.. before the internet a lot of these things were about who you knew and a lot of class prejudices would mean that folks were conditioned into believing certain oppourtunities were closed off to them. I guess the ten pound poms.. got to see australia.

Now with the advent of the internet it means the opportunities to work for fcuk all have been expanded around the globe! cost of living is much lower in Thailand.. well actually.. it's much lower everywhere in the world now.

It's not so much of a gap year as in gaaap yaaar darling.. the idea is to have more of a working holiday..
 
I took a gap year. I most likely wasted it in a way, but I did do some travelling and stayed a long while in a place (In Greece) that I still go back to. That taught me about living frugally (£3 a day budget) and being self reliant ... bought a return plane ticket for £60 and sold the return portion when I got there to someone who had "over stayed" and needed to get home. In those days, you could go to the airport and check in, then give them the boarding pass. I actually hitch hiked home. For much of the year I played music (in a band called Or Was He Pushed?) in Huddersfield. Bill Nelson put me on to them when he played the Kirk .... I asked him if he knew any decent musicians in Huddersfield, where I knew I was moving to with my folks. That sort of got a lot out of my system and, waddya know, I ended up involved with music for a long time after Uni. I also started working on doors (got roped into it through doing martial arts) ... something that kept me alive financially through my Uni years and beyond. That said, there was a lot of women and booze and all that frippery, which meant my father told me I'd wasted my gap year. He may have been right, because when I went to Uni in Birmingham, I ended up doing a course that bored me witless anyway ... even if it did pave the way into film and telly.
My son went directly to Uni from School 2 years ago. He dropped out at the end of the first year as he hated the course (physics). He had a year dicking about/sleeping all day/gaming all night and has just started again in Sheffield doing something he loves.
I realise, this contribution to the hive mind consensus does not offer any definitive conclusions, but I hope you enjoyed reading a load of waffle.
 
If I had my time again I'd have gone as a mature student. All the mature students on my course had a ball. 7-10 years older, few quid in their pockets, some skills to back up their studies and the knowledge they were escaping the world of work for a bit.
 
Normanby_Red said:
Tell him to get himself a job doing that'll get him some worthwhile experience. I took a year out from uni to work at deloitte and rejoined once I finished my studies.

Even if he doesn't end up going back to work for whoever it is, graduates with some sort of relevant work experience are looked upon a lot more favourably than graduates who've got zero experience
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I’m not sure about the work element. I took 3 years out after my A levels to hitch around Europe and North Africa (before the days of cheap air travel) picking up bar jobs, vendage and anything else that was going.
When I landed a graduate traineeship with a blue chip FI, despite going to Sunderland Poly, they told me it was the self-sufficiency and independence that got me in.
I guess if you are taking a year out, and don’t have 4 A grades, show that it has made you grow as an individual.
 
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