Did your son or daughter go on a "grand adventure" after high school?

[mamamary]

The closest to an adventure my daughter is taking is going to the beach with friends for a week in June right after graduation. They call it senior week and lots of kids head down to Ocean City, MD for this week. She is paying for it herself. She got the week off from her job so I'm glad she is getting to go. Then back to work for the rest of the summer to earn money towards her college tuition.

 

[Hikergirl]

No no gap years for my kids, unless they are fully supporting themselves at the time of highschool graduation.

 

[aprilgail]

Only adventure my daughter is going on it to Disney with 2 other kids for a week after graduation then to Vermont to visit a friend of hers from summer high school college last year. I do not believe in taking a gap year- most kids that do never end up going. I am fine with a gap year AFTER college but not before.

 

[mamacatnv]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the attitude of if not off to college then they are going to sit on the couch and play video games but I am a bit. There are plenty of kids out there self funding a gap year or funding with a bit of help from family. They are volunteering all over the world, building housing in 3rd world countries, teaching children to read, helping the elderly, farming and a gazillion other things to learn, discover and make a difference. Not all of them are not just partying it up on Mom and Dad's dime.

I know so many young people (with college degrees) who cannot find employment in their field or are underemployed and still living at home.
Why? There are a million scenarios but college educated does not automatically equal a successful career.
Perhaps even though they went to college they didn't choose wisely in their education path or they followed a passion that they cannot figure out how to turn into a paycheck or they are so in debt from school that they have to work at anything that comes along to make those loan payments or even due to a bad economy or lack of jobs in their fields in the areas they live in. They hadn't garnered the maturity perhaps to be able to see the big picture, to look down the road and figure out not only what to study but how to earn a long term living doing so.

I would rather my DD take a year to discover herself, to mature a bit more, to realize just exactly what she is capable of, to have to be self reliant and make decisions than to go to college because Mom/Dad said so and struggle with her direction.

 

[aprilgail]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the attitude of if not off to college then they are going to sit on the couch and play video games but I am a bit. There are plenty of kids out there self funding a gap year or funding with a bit of help from family. They are volunteering all over the world, building housing in 3rd world countries, teaching children to read, helping the elderly, farming and a gazillion other things to learn, discover and make a difference. Not all of them are not just partying it up on Mom and Dad's dime.

.

That would not even be my worry- my worry is that my daughter would find she likes not going to school and not want to go back after a year off LOL.

 

[mamacatnv]

That would not even be my worry- my worry is that my daughter would find she likes not going to school and not want to go back after a year off LOL.

I get that, I can relate to that concern.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

My Grand Adventure was called "Mom and her best friend packing all my stuff into a moving van and driving to the next state over in the middle of the night without warning and delivering me to my new college so that I couldn't connect/say goodbye to my group of HS friends". Yes this was pre-cell phone days and the Internet was just a baby. My "friends" weren't exactly the best decision-makers... later a few of them straightened their lives out but I imagine most of them haven't improved their lot in life. I don't want to find out actually so I never Google any of them!

I vividly remember watching the stars race by through the window of the moving truck and feeling so, so alone and sad. Being dumped off in my dormitory and left to sort myself out for the indefinite future... THAT was really awful.

And then I chose to make poor decisions because I thought my mom would come to my rescue and deal with anything troublesome. I sure wasn't expecting her to get into a dehabilitating car accident a few months after I left... and then shortly I was pulled out of school by my mother because her house had been foreclosed on, and the moving van would be picking me and all my stuff up, then driving to move us all into my Grandmom's basement.... in rural Bible Belt territory. QUITE the culture shock from living in Denver at the time!

from there my family bounced me in and out of school because I was to be the caretaker (you know, as the youngest able-bodied member of the family!). So I "wasted" all my college years dealing with my family, working little silly retail jobs and trying to scrape by below the poverty line. The area where my grandparents live has no jobs, if there are, there aren't enough employees who can pass a drug test, so the company relocates or closes. Also nobody can afford to start a small business because you can't have employees without paying for health insurance and all the other bits and pieces an employer is responsible for. So you get an idea, get your family on board, work yourselves half-dead, but you can't hire anyone, you can't grow your business, and your business taxes are now due!

 

[Hikergirl]

That would not even be my worry- my worry is that my daughter would find she likes not going to school and not want to go back after a year off LOL.

That would be worry too. That is what I did, but I wasn't having any grand adventures. I didn't know what I wanted to do as far as a career so instead of going to school, I worked full time. Then it was very easy not to go back to school, and I am now without a college education. I will not encourage or support my kids to doing the same.
I also don't think you need to not go to school, travel, volunteer, etc to "find yourself". I think going to college can also help you find yourself. There are plenty of stories out there about people who had no direction going into college, who managed to eventually graduate and be successful in a career that they love.

 

[NFLDERS]

Not after but, in the last year of HS during Spring Break. The Music Dept took the music students to Greece from here in Ontario, Canada. The students were there for 10 days, and played in the ruin Amphitheatre. "It was amazing!" in his words.

 

[PigletsPal2]

My DDs had their grand adventures while they were still in high school. We lived in Peru for DD#1's junior and senior years and during that time, she visited Maachu Pichu (I'm sure I spelled that wrong); Quito, Ecuador; and La Paz, Bolivia, as well as several small villages outside of Lima. After Peru, DD#1 went back to the states to live with my sister and go to college. DD#2 was in 5th and 6th grades in Peru and her classes stayed in country. She got her chance to travel when we went to our next assignment, Istanbul, Turkey. From Istanbul, she traveled to Ankara and Izmir and went on a school skiing trip that took them briefly over the Turkish/Soviet Union Border. We lived on the European side of Istanbul, but if we missed our turn into our housing area, we ended up in Asia - there was nowhere to turn around. That's quite a trip - Europe to Asia in 25 minutes!

We next went to London, England, where my baby really blossomed! She was age 14 when we got there, and age 21 when we left two years later! We arrived in country a month before school started, so every night she would pore over her travel guides, decide what "touristy" thing she would do the next day (museums, art galleries, West End Shows, etc.) con her father out if 20BPS, and off she would go! People thought we were nuts letting her run around town by herself, but I figured if she could navigate and stay safe in Istanbul at ages 12-14, she could certainly handle London at 14. She figured out the Tube, learned how to convert money instantaneously in her head, and hey, she knew the language! London made a huge impression on her life, and she tries to return there at least twice a year since she graduated (a stateside) high school in 1991.

DD#2 also visited us in Jakarta, Indonesia; Manila, the Philippines; and both DDs and DGD visited us in Frankfurt, Germany. They all passed on a trip to Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire - I can't imagine why!

If you and she can together manage it financially, and it's what she wants to do, I'd highly recommend a gap year to travel. DD#1 found her passion (photography) and DD#2 polished hers (writing) outside of the college environment. DD#2 did go to college with a rich background of experiences to write about. DD#1 didn't go back to college, but she has a magnificent portfolio of photos. I think they got the best of both worlds!

Queen Colleen

 

[LisaR]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the attitude of if not off to college then they are going to sit on the couch and play video games but I am a bit. There are plenty of kids out there self funding a gap year or funding with a bit of help from family. They are volunteering all over the world, building housing in 3rd world countries, teaching children to read, helping the elderly, farming and a gazillion other things to learn, discover and make a difference. Not all of them are not just partying it up on Mom and Dad's dime.

I know so many young people (with college degrees) who cannot find employment in their field or are underemployed and still living at home.
Why? There are a million scenarios but college educated does not automatically equal a successful career.
Perhaps even though they went to college they didn't choose wisely in their education path or they followed a passion that they cannot figure out how to turn into a paycheck or they are so in debt from school that they have to work at anything that comes along to make those loan payments or even due to a bad economy or lack of jobs in their fields in the areas they live in. They hadn't garnered the maturity perhaps to be able to see the big picture, to look down the road and figure out not only what to study but how to earn a long term living doing so.

I would rather my DD take a year to discover herself, to mature a bit more, to realize just exactly what she is capable of, to have to be self reliant and make decisions than to go to college because Mom/Dad said so and struggle with her direction.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a year off if they aren't ready for college for whatever reason (or decide not to go). If someone said to me, "Junior isn't going to college this year. He isn't sure what he wants to do or if he even wants to go so he's going to work for a year and he hopes to save enough to maybe travel a little before deciding what he wants to do next," I wouldn't think anything of it. I think my hangup is with the words "take a year off." Take a year off implies that they are absolutely going to college in a year. An adventure says something fun not playing video games while they try and find themselves. Those are two different things, imo. But I hear gap year and grand adventure and the two rarely go hand in hand except for a very small segment of the population. If a person truly isn't mature enough to go to college (be it away from home or commuting or even taking some courses online) they likely aren't mature enough to traipse through Europe alone either. I am not at all opposed to a true gap year. I would have loved it myself. But for most of us with kids, it isn't an option. Mine didn't graduate high school with money burning a hole in their pocket for a grand adventure. I certainly wasn't paying for them to travel the world. College it was.

My daughter was lucky enough to travel overseas in both high school and college. While we gave her birthday money to put towards the trip, she did both incredibly cheap and on her own dime and both times were for ten days total including travel time. It was a grand adventure for her age, but she still had time for school.

 

[tcufrog]

I didn't take a gap year. I did however save my money from my high school senior year job and went backpacking around Europe for a month with my older sister who was living in London at the the time. It was the perfect length or time because I was able to get a nice break from school to decompress and then had plenty of time to get ready for college and orientation when I returned. It was a great compromise between gap year and no real break.