Deepening our Awareness: Universities and Gap Years

 

 Happy Friday!  Following up to last week's blog we are on a theme about awareness.  While Neil is referring to awareness as seeing the world differently.  This week's blog explores how gap years can help inspire a period of awareness for young adults; additionally, the growing awareness and understanding of the purpose of a gap year by universities.  Below is an article that was published in the Vancouver Observer this past week.    

North Americans catching onto
gap year trend 

Source: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/life/travel/north-americans-catching-gap-year-trend#comment-233818

To gap, or not to gap? That is the question.

While the gap year, or “year out”, has been a common and popular rite of passage in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and many countries in Europe for decades,North American students have  traditionally ridden the academic conveyor belt all the way from preschool to university without a break.

Now, the tides are changing and many soon- to-be high school graduates are saying they’re burnt out, and need more time before deciding what they want to take at university. Instead of packing for their first year, they are now booking their flights to go volunteering in Africa, or work on a yacht in the Caribbean.

North America is starting to catch on to the “gap year” trend, and for good reason. Amid concerns about drop-out rates, researchers now say that students who go straight to university often find themselves in a program that doesn’t interest them, and are more likely to change programs, thus prolonging their degree and increasing their debt level, and they are more likely to quit. Experts now say that going straight to university may be short-sighted for some, and a year out is the way to go for some soul-searching.

And taking a gap year has never been easier. Many universities are now willing to defer start dates for a year – York University is embracing this gap year phenomenon with its Bridging the Gap program and “celebrates” a student’s choice to take a year off to gain work experience, do community service or go on an international exchange and will reserve the student’s admission spot for up to a year provided he or she is accepted into the program. Harvard University, one of the top universities in the world, has always been ahead of its time and for the past 40 years has proposed that students take a year out in its letter of admission.

Is there a downside to taking a gap year? Not really, according to a 2008 Statistics Canada report published jointly with Canadian Policy Research Networks. The report found that students who delay post-secondary education don’t face a disadvantage in the labour market later on – as long as they actually complete their program once started. In fact, a Canadian Council of Learning study found that students who took a gap year were eight per cent more likely to be employed upon finishing all their studies.

Understandably, many parents are a little nervous that their son or daughter will be side-tracked and destined to remain degree-less forever. However, even though there are no formal studies on the actual number of gap year students who do make their way to university, admissions staff say that only a few drop off the radar.
On the contrary, one year out in the world can make a young person more focused, better prepared for university life and more likely to complete at least one university degree. After all, it’s not getting into university that counts – it’s getting the degree at the end of the line.

Students who have taken the year out, universities, and the latest statistics aften agree that the gap year was worthwhile. Although it may be a daunting prospect for parents and students to divert from the “safe” bound-for- university-after-high-school route, the rewards and benefits are well worth stepping out of the comfort zone. To find out more about gap year options, come and visit SWAP Working Holidays and Basecamp International Center Volunteer Programs at the Study and Go Abroad Fairs.

Going Aboard: Our Shared Fate

September marks an interesting time for families. Many families bring their children to university or college, and for some who have chosen a gap year, maybe to the airport.  After a summer of fun and preparation, it is time for these young adults to start out on a new journey.  What we read here, is many young adults are making different choices:  choices that take them on a global journey.  .

Jennifer Larr has the itch to go abroad. She's 26 years old and has already spent a year studying in France and two years in Rwanda with the Peace Corps, and she is headed to Uganda this summer for an internship. She's also a graduate student, studying international relations at UCLA.Larr is part of a growing number of 20- and early 30-somethings whose American dream has moved beyond suburban homes and traditional nuclear families, and it's one that now goes even beyond U.S. borders.Larr and others like her are more likely than previous generations to live, study and work abroad. As they travel the world, they're now abandoning some of the traditional tenets of the American dream that their parents held dear.National pollster John Zogby has been chronicling this trend for years. His book The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream discusses some of the changes taking place in Larr's generation. He has a name for young people like her: "first globals."It's a generation just as likely to watch the World Cup as it is the Super Bowl. It's not, however, just the children of the wealthy and the educated, says Zogby. "This is expanding beyond the Wellesleys and the Stanfords," he says. "It's different now.""Two out of three of them have passports," Zogby says. "They are well-traveled; technologically they have networks that include people all over the world. They have a desire to be nimble, to go anywhere and to be anywhere. They also have a desire to change their world and feel like they're in a position to do that."There are a few reasons why. More than 270,000 students studied abroad in the 2009-2010 school year, according to the International Institute of Education. That number is three times what it was two decades earlier. At the same time, the Internet and social media have made every part of the world seem instantly accessible. America's youth is just more diverse — and international — than ever.On top of being globally minded, Zogby says, these first globals have a different perspective on the idea of ownership as a tenet of the American dream. They are putting less emphasis on accumulating traditional things like homes, cars and the types of families their parents had. Instead, they're putting more energy into acquiring experience.  Larr, for instance, says she can do without the house and the kids."People will always rent you apartments wherever you go, [and] not every woman wants to have a child and be a mother, and be in the house all the time," Larr says.She could even do without the marriage."I've been in a really long-term relationship, and we're really happy the way we are. We can be committed to each other without necessarily having someone approve it," she says.Zogby says that all of this is reflected in his research, and that much of what made older generations tick just doesn't work for first globals. "The permanence of owning things doesn't exist," Zogby says. "The permanence of living somewhere doesn't exist. The permanence of getting a job and holding on to that job for the next 40 years doesn't exist."For many of these first globals, the idea of public service is a common thread. La Mikia Castillo, 28, recently graduated from USC's Price School of Public Policy. Her family is from the U.S. and Panama, and she has studied and traveled in Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala."My American dream is for other people to be able to achieve whatever they want to achieve," Castillo says. "It's not really about me and what I have as an individual. It's about trying to make a difference around the world."  Franklin Gilliam, dean of UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs, says dreams like Castillo's represent a new way of seeing the world that's become common among first globals. "It's a sea change in orientation," Gilliam says. "They understand this idea of a shared fate, or a linked fate. That somehow, what happens to somebody in Mumbai may have an effect on me in West Los Angeles."Julia Capizzi, a 33-year-old recent USC graduate who is studying for the Foreign Service exam, agrees."The larger world beyond L.A., beyond Chicago and my immediate experiences is an extension of me," Capizzi says. "So I feel an obligation to know what that is. Otherwise I feel like I'm walking around with blinders on."Capizzi also says her American dream is better than that of her parents, because she and people like her aren't afraid to literally go anywhere to accomplish their goals. "I think that my generation will be more fulfilled than my parents' generation," she says. But she admits that she had to make some sacrifices to live the life of a first global. She doesn't own a car or a house, and she says she would love to have already owned a house. There are a lot of different parts of her life, she says, that she's had to come to peace with to pursue her goals. In spite of any reservations, the Capizzis, Castillos and Larrs are here to stay, says Zogby, as is their new take on the American dream, and it may upend traditional ideas of family and citizenship as we now know it."[There are] going to be so many families out there where Papa's in Singapore and Mama's in Mauritius, and Baby is somewhere back and forth," he says.  The question is, what will that baby's dream be? And will it even be called American?

Article link and audio clip of article located here:http://www.npr.org/2012/07/10/156463825/globals-generation-focuses-on-experience?sc=17&f=1001

Youth Engagement - Not Rocket Science

In March of 2009, the Canadian Heritage, Citizen Participation Branch in partnership with the Atlantic Evaluation Group, Inc. published a report entitled “Youth Participation in Arts, Heritage, Culture and Community” that explored the topic of engaging youth in our communities.  They talked with community organizations that work with youth as well as to the youth directly for their study.

The findings are not extreme, nor are they surprising but they shine a bright light onto the values of our youth.  Here are a few of the ideas that stood out for me while reading the article:

1. Youth want to have positive relationships with adults, they seek to be treated with respect and to be heard.
2. They want to be engaged as a whole person - in their feeling of belonging, in acknowledging their contributions and by providing them with opportunities to contribute to society.
3. Young people feel that they do not know how to become involved in their communities - they need the encouragement of their mentors, teachers, parents or older youth to present them with opportunities to get involved.
4. Youth want to be involved in all stages of projects - from planning, through implimentation and then be kept in the loop with the after-effects of their contributions.  A thank you note or an honorarium are also appreciated!
5. “FACEBOOK DOES NOT REPLACE FACE-TO-FACE” (Fuller, 2009, pg, 16, emphasis added).  Youth still value interacting with each other in person - the internet is for communicating but does not override getting together.

How can you engage the youth in your community? How can you remove barriers to their involvement?   How can you help them find their voice and contribute in a meaningful way?

Read the full article here: http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/pc-cp/publctn/2009-01/index-eng.cfm