Have you ever heard about a gap year? It seems to be popular in overseas that some of fresh graduates from high school will choose to spend a year travelling around the world or do a volunteer job before they go to university. But apparently, it doesn’t seem to be popular in our country to have a gap year after high school graduation as many adolescents tend to go straight to university especially those who can afford the college tuition.
Here I want to share my dilemma when I was really in two minds about what to do when I left my college. should I go straight to continue my study or should I have some work experiences. In my case, it can be considered as a gap year issue.
First of all, there are so many benefits of continuing my study directly after I finished my bachelor degree. The most crucial thing for me is that sooner I get my qualification, the quicker I can catch my dream to be a lecturer because the job needs to get at least a Master degree graduate. In my opinion, it can be beneficial for fresh graduates to continue learning as their tought’s still fresh to accept the lectures. Of course in this term you have to be sure about your career plan. Secondly, it is often said that knowledge is the key power of life, considering many parties are likely to hire professional employees with high salary.
However, it could be argued that you have to face a lot of issues while you were continuing your study, especially when the university is far away from home. For example, you might end up with suffering culture shock, homesickness, or even several unexpected diseases. Moreover, you need to take the tuition fee as well as the living cost into account before deciding to learn unless you’ve already got a full scholarship.
On the other hand, having some work experiences seem to beneficial before we face a real work life. Some people assume that it is essential to have at least a real work experience before we apply for a professional job. Besides, mostly the employment market for bachelor degree is greater than postgraduates so it won’t be useful sometimes to have a higher qualification than is needed. Furthermore, having a work experience after graduating from college will help you to provide the tuition fee and living cost for your postgraduate study.
Finally, it was hard for me to choose between those tough decisions. However I believe that having a work experience before continuing my higher study seemed to be an ideal option for me regarding of the benefit I might lose for not going straight to university. Nevertheless, these inconveniences turn to be a great fortune for me to meet many new people during my work days and build a new fantastic relation that I’ve never imagined before. So what’s your gap year story?