<p>I'm deferring 'til fall 2008. I plan to work, travel and volunteer during my gap year.</p>
<p>Is anyone else here thinking about becoming a member of the class of 20*12*?</p>
<p>Lucky dog. People and their (very) liberal parents.</p>
<p>Wow, Anniushka! Your plans for 2007 sound great :)
It's a pitty though...I was looking forward to meeting you! :(</p>
<p>Awww, ROCKao! Well, you'll meet me anyway. I'll just be a year "younger" than you. :)</p>
<p>I tried, but failed; my father believes that college is best left un-interrupted from HS.
I hope I can meet you and the other Stanford admits, but I won't count on it.</p>
<p>i wouldn't suggest deferring, just because it seems all purposely to me. if you truly wanted to make a difference, go to college directly, then graduate and donate an entire year earning to charities. it'll do much more than some volunteering and such. plus, many jobs offer travel opportunities</p>
<p>Well, innocentstalker1, I am deferring. I am not asking for people's opinions about my decision; I'm asking if anybody else is making a similar decision.</p>
<p>Thanks for your input, though. </p>
<p>Just say the word and I'll explain the reasoning behind my decision, if you'd like... though that wasn't really what I was intending this thread to be about. I wanted it to be where other people could discuss their plans, if they have any. But hey, I'm flexible. :p</p>
<p>you sound angry. don't get mad, get glad</p>
<p>go ahead with your reasoning</p>
<p>This is roughly what I plan to do during my gap year:</p>
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<p>2-3 months- guest farm worker in Norway (where my family is from, but where I have never been; a chance to get to know my roots and do good, rigorous physical labor, which I think is good for the soul, or whatever you want to call it.) 3+ months- teach English in Madrid (I have done this sort of thing on a volunteer--local--basis, but here it would be a job: living with a family, tutoring them, and spiffing up my own Spanish skills and getting to know the fascinating city of Madrid during my time off.) the rest of the time, up to late May/early June- volunteer in Ecuador (where my family will be living and starting a farm near a small Andean village, about an hour from the city of Cuenca, where the volunteer program is. I also hope to take Quichua classes at a language school I know of in Cuenca, as well as work on my Spanish skills--the Spanish they speak in Cuenca is beautiful, and, incidentally, the Quichua language is why.) I'll come home in time to see my wonderful high school friends graduate (they're all a year younger than me--so this way we'll all be college freshmen together, which is an added bonus), then I'll probably work in my hometown until I have to go to California. </p>
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<p>I see a gap year as an opportunity to do something that I have never, ever experienced before. I've experienced hard academic work--not Stanford University, no, but on some level, 12 hours a day of academic work is 12 hours a day of academic work no matter where it comes from--but I've never experienced a year's worth of solo travel. I've never held down much of a job, much less one on a family farm in Norway; I've never spent more than a couple days in Madrid, much less lived with a family there and tutored their children in my native language; and I've never volunteered abroad, period. I know--absolutely, positively--that I can do these things at the age of 18. How do I know I can do these things at 25, 30, 35--once the crush to get a job and "settle down" sets in? And the gap between high school and university is more of a natural gap than the gap between freshman and sophomore years, or sophomore and junior years, etc, of college, even if I were to stop out (which Stanford allows). I don't see the opportunity coming easily at any point except after high school graduation and before post-secondary matriculation.</p>
<p>I am extremely interested in traveling--and what better time to do it than when I'm still young and unencumbered by job and family responsibilities? And donating money (by the way, I don't count on being in a financial situation that enables me to donate a year's earnings to charity) just isn't the same as actually donating my time and life-energy. Maybe money would help more than my sweat and blood... and maybe what those impoverished Ecuadorean children need is a kindhearted young yanquita to take them by the hand and help them do whatever it is the volunteer agency will set me to work helping them do. I'm into human interaction, not faceless (so to speak) cash.
More important, a monetary donation doesn't let me learn anything. How do you think I got accepted to Stanford? I'm dedicated to learning. </p>
<p>And finally: Why the hell not? :D It'll be fun. It'll be different. Stanford's cool with it. Many, many Europeans do it, and they turn out fine. It's just not the fashion in the US to take a gap year. Well, that's one of the many things that I think is silly about the US. :p</p>
<p>hey, go ahead and toss out my take. i'm not trying to dissuade you (actually, i am :D )</p>
<p>your year sounds fun... i'm jealous now</p>
<p>I'm glad you understand me now. :) </p>
<p>.....I'm not sure if I'm understanding you, though...
[quote]
go ahead and toss out my take.
[/quote]
:confused: Slang? Typo? Non-native English speaker? (No offense meant, of course! :o)</p>
<p>toss out my take on the issue? hmm??</p>
<p>OOOOHHHHHH! That kind of "take"! Sorry--it's past my bedtime. :o :o :o :p</p>
<p>Uh... so I'm going to bed. Good night.</p>
<p>night buddy</p>