<p>Well I'm from New Zealand (yes, the small island in the southern hemisphere that the uneducated part of America claims is part of their country or Australia), and we graduate in our summer, which is in December. This means that for people in NZ and I suspect in many other countries, there won't know which colleges they're accepted to until months after graduation (unless they apply early action) and it will be almost an entire year before starting college in the US, so what would one normally do for the whole year while their friends are at uni?</p>
<p>Well, I am in South Africa and have had the same problem. I have a few nice scholarships to a local uni, so have been here for the last 2 months. Hoping (really hoping!) to be able to leave on April 1st to look at the US places I will hopefully be accepted to. This is an option for you; gives you something to do, and will hopefully help me when I go to a competitive US uni. It was also really cheap :)</p>
<p>What would you be doing if you took a full gap year?</p>
<p>Well at my school in Germany we too graduate in February.</p>
<p>Many people here use the months for interning, traveling or plain relaxing and partying. I myself will work on a few projects and then intern in china</p>
<p>Haha okay I did not know that southern hemisphere students graduated in december, learned something today. ^germany in feb?? Is the central exam so early. In holland its in may/june(</p>
<p>^ Are you from Holland? Wow.
And its like that in Asian countries is well, we have relatives and family friends in Hong kong and Korea and they finish school in their winter.</p>
<p>People here in Nepal usually take a gap year and they aren’t always lying around. they do lots of stuff, volunteering somewhere, internships, having fun with friends (this more than everything) , travelling…</p>
<p>@jjavdm
Well German secondary education is very decentralized and our area has 12.5 years of hs 
We have our exams in January and receive our diplomas in feb or early march. It’s nice cause you have some time to figure your life out, travel and so on without having to take a full gap year.</p>
<p>That sounds nice ^ German. One nice thing about going to the US is that it gives me 4 odd months from getting my decision to the start of term to do things like that.</p>
<p>Same here in Australia. However, I know that if I took a gap year I’d probably never get started again :(</p>
<p>But if you started college in your country do the credits from the courses and everything still count in the US? If they don’t, wouldn’t you just be studying for nothing then?
I’d much rather do internships/volunteer/travel etc!</p>
<p>I took the nine months off, travelled, looked for work (unsucessfully) and made the most of spending time with my friends before I left. It wasn’t that hard to get back into school work so don’t worry so much about taking time off.</p>
<p>I think that depends on the type of person you are, beeish. I know that I won’t get started again if I took nine months off - I’m also the type of person who sleeps in until 12pm most days in summer :)</p>
<p>^ But one would probably not be sitting in his/her sofa and going on Facebook the majority of the time. Many people would make plans to travel and volunteer as well a work part time!</p>
<p>I’m Central American and graduated December.</p>
<p>Now I spend some working at my parents’ store and working visa stuff.
It’s actually my family that takes advantage of the situation to travel since I am free to help around lol</p>
<p>I’m Central American and graduated December.</p>
<p>Now I spend some working at my parents’ store and working visa stuff.
It’s actually my family that takes advantage of the situation to travel since I am free to help around lol</p>