ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => Victorian Education Discussion => Topic started by: [email protected] on July 09, 2011, 12:31:07 pm
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Is a GAP year a good thing to take?
I think there is often a lot of misconceptions out there that only "bad, lazy students" take GAP years.
Who would you recommend for someone to take a GAP year and overall is it a good decision for someone to take a GAP year?
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I think there is often a lot of misconceptions out there that only "bad, lazy students" take GAP years.
Huh? I think there are a lot of high achievers that take a GAP year to do volunteering events such as travelling to Africa to teach English. Or take a year off after a hard year's work to travel the world. Then there are others who take a GAP year to work full-time to save enough money for tertiary studies the next year.
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I think there is often a lot of misconceptions out there that only "bad, lazy students" take GAP years.
Huh? I think there are a lot of high achievers that take a GAP year to do volunteering events such as travelling to Africa to teach English. Or take a year off after a hard year's work to travel the world. Then there are others who take a GAP year to work full-time to save enough money for tertiary studies the next year.
Cool.
Do you know what proportion of university students take a gap year prior to starting their degree?
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I believe this is the publication you're after. It splits up the number of deferments by region.
But in short, in the year 2009-2010, a total of 5924 students deferred.
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I took a "gap semester". One of the best decisions I ever made.
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I took a "gap semester". One of the best decisions I ever made.
Why do you think so?
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Depends what you do.
Go travelling, make money, do some volunteer work then you're aight.
I know someone who's taken the whole year off to study UMAT. That's rubbish in my opinion.
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I took a "gap semester". One of the best decisions I ever made.
Why do you think so?
Break from study --> Real life perspective.
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the only stupid thing is you're stuck with the younger cohort, right? a part from that, GAPs should defintely be soemthing you should do! (i would, but my parents are asian :P)
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I know someone who's taken the whole year off to study UMAT. That's rubbish in my opinion.
I know someone who did that and got into med. Pretty risky though.
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I know someone who's taken the whole year off to study UMAT. That's rubbish in my opinion.
I know someone who did that and got into med. Pretty risky though.
I was gonna do it but chickened out...I am so full of it. :p
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I know that misconceptions, having to explain it to parents is a bit :/
But GAP years don't really sound too bad, you can do so many things..like travel and experience the world around you, personally if I had taken a GAP year it would be for work. But I was lucky and didn't have to.
I just wouldn't like to be in a younger cohort ( like someone mentioned) I'm not against it, just wouldn't prefer it anyway
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I know someone who's taken the whole year off to study UMAT. That's rubbish in my opinion.
Was he in your year @ mhs? I think I know who too :o
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I know someone who's taken the whole year off to study UMAT. That's rubbish in my opinion.
Was he in your year @ mhs? I think I know who too :o
I think I met that guy at the premz awards.
I hope it works out for him. Massive gamble.
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I just wouldn't like to be in a younger cohort ( like someone mentioned) I'm not against it, just wouldn't prefer it anyway
Lol.
You realise that within any given unit, there might be 1st years, 2nd years, 5th years, honors students, mature age students, overseas students (who in their home countries finish high school at a different age)... you don't really belong to a "cohort" in that sense that you belong to a cohort in high school.
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I just wouldn't like to be in a younger cohort ( like someone mentioned) I'm not against it, just wouldn't prefer it anyway
Lol.
You realise that within any given unit, there might be 1st years, 2nd years, 5th years, honors students, mature age students, overseas students (who in their home countries finish high school at a different age)... you don't really belong to a "cohort" in that sense that you belong to a cohort in high school.
Yes I do..when I first started out, and found that some were mature age, I found it a bit weird. I've always heard of them, but never thought I'd be with them. Plus I did just come from school so I had to adjust myself to the changes
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I would really recommend it.
In retrospect, I should've taken a GAP semester. I don't think it has anything to do with how smart you are, how hard you worked in VCE, whether you're going to succeed later on, but sometimes after churning through a system for 13 years, you need a break. You need to see something outside the bubble: you need to understand that raw academic achievements are insignificant in the scheme of things, and you need to discern whether you actually want to do your course. I feel as though a lot of people take courses (particularly law or medicine, but sometimes things like science) because they feel pressured to do so and because they don't know the reality of the careers. I think taking a GAP semester would've allowed me to relax (something that I really needed) and to realize that I loved humanities (particularly languages) as well as physics. University helped me to make this realization, but it's much harder to grapple with this when you have to go to class and study for subjects that you don't care all that much about.
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Yeah Stonecold and Rohit we're probably thinking about the same guy.
I wouldn't mind people taking a year off to do UMAT if they went and volunteered, made themselves some money, added to their resume etc, but I think taking a full year out to just study for UMAT is a waste of time. Granted you do get August-March to relax, so an extra 3 or so months to have nothing to do, but it's moreso about what you use that time for.
Most people take a gap year for some sort of purpose, to take time to consider themselves, get some financial stability, add to life experience etc. So if you do that alongside studying, you should be okay.