<p>Hello, I'm a junior and I'm having the idea of taking a year off before becoming a senior. I have never had any real work experience and I want to take this time off to work for a year to have some experience or internship.</p>
<p>Is it possible to leave UCLA for a year and come back?
Do you guys think it's a good idea for me to take a year off or should I just continue and get my degree then get a job?</p>
<p>Thanks guys</p>
<p>No, you’ll probably need to apply for readmission. The reason isn’t really legit, so it’s a bad idea.</p>
<p>********. Readmission applications are always granted if you left in good academic standing. I say go for it, or at least start looking for jobs that you might be interested in doing for a year. If you don’t have anything lined up by September, stay and finish, but if the job of your dreams comes along, go for it, grow up a little, then come back and finish strong.</p>
<p>I would finish the senior year. The perfect time to get job experience is during the summer, not during the year.</p>
<p>A good reason to take a year off is to travel or something related. So unless you already have a co-op or job lined up for next year, I wouldn’t consider taking the year off.</p>
<p>Just my opinion.</p>
<p>I agree with BoelterHall that “a” good reason to take year off is to travel. But there are lots of other good reasons to take a year off. “Another” good reason to take a year off is to work, especially if it means that you can save some money and don’t have to take out loans your senior year, or don’t have to work-study, or just have some more spending money and have more fun in beautiful Los Angeles. The expectations of your friends and family will be a lot more crippling once you have that piece of paper, so if there’s anything you want to do (whether it’s travel, work, riding the rails, protesting nuclear proliferation) before resigning yourself to two weeks of vacation a year…do it now!</p>
<p>And better yet if working for a year gives you some marketable skills and helps you decide what you want to do after graduation.</p>
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<p>The idea sounds good, but you have to take the current job market into consideration. The worst case scenario will be not finding a worthwhile job and wasting the year (I don’t want to sound negative, but look at the whole picture).</p>
<p>It’s difficult to find a job that will pay well (if that’s the objective) during the year without a degree … there will be recent graduates without jobs who will be competing … </p>
<p>… unless the objective is to just find a volunteer position or an internship without pay …</p>
<p>there are people who take year(s) off to pay for school, but they planned well in advance and secured the job before taking the year(s) off</p>
<p>In other words, I don’t think it’s advisable to say “I’m going to take a year off, now I’ll look for jobs”.</p>
<p>^ by “good academic standing” what exactly do you mean?
GPA? Units? No debt lol?</p>
<p>@BH I agree completely, which is why I didn’t say that, I said “If you don’t have anything lined up by September, stay and finish.” As long as you withdraw before the first day of classes, you don’t owe anything for the quarter.</p>
<p>@jiceo1 Good academic standing = not being on academic probation. Not sure about unit count, if you’re under on units you’re under on units, don’t know how it would affect a readmission app, my (uneducated) guess would be not at all.</p>