Exploring Gap Year Opportunities for Your Students (or You!) with Julia Rogers [Episode 147]

gap-year-opportunities-banner

Here's What to Expect In This Episode:

Have your students ever expressed interest in taking a gap year? A gap year is more than just time off! It’s a deliberate period to explore personal, practical, and professional interests before transitioning to post-secondary education. Under the right circumstances, and with intentional planning, a gap year could be the perfect option for some students.

This is a topic we’ve never discussed on the podcast before, so I’m excited to talk about it today. Gap year education expert, Julia Rogers, joins me in this episode to break down exactly what a gap year is (and isn’t) and to share various gap year opportunities for your high school students. 

From traveling in Europe to working locally or taking a structured experiential semester, the possibilities for a gap year are endless. After listening to this conversation, you’ll have plenty of resources to share with students and parents…and you might even find that you’re interested in taking your own gap year!

Topics Covered in This Episode:

  • The official definition of a gap year (and the boundaries that come with it)
  • Some top benefits of taking a gap year
  • Conversations that can be had with parents to help them better understand gap years
  • Examples of what students might do during a gap year
  • Resources for students who are interested in taking a gap year
  • Categorizing gap year intentions into three buckets: personal, practical, and professional
  • Positive results that Julia has seen from students who take a gap year

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Meet Julia:

Julia Rogers is a leading expert in the growing field of gap year education and a prominent advocate for the gap year movement. As President Emeritus of the Gap Year Association, she has been instrumental in advancing the field through research, standards-setting, and advocacy. 

With over 15 years of experience as an accredited gap year counselor, Julia has dedicated her career to helping young adults navigate transformative educational experiences. 

Julia collaborates with educators, service-learning organizations, nonprofits, government entities, and families around the world to develop creative educational pathways that result in young adults being better prepared to succeed in life and work. Julia is also a TEDx speaker, a podcast host, and frequent guest on local and national media outlets. 

When not planning her next travel adventure, she enjoys playing in the mountains of Stowe, Vermont with her husband and two daughters.

Connect With Our Guest:

Read the transcript for this episode:

Lauren 0:00
You can imagine my excitement when somebody reached out to talk on the podcast about gap years, because we’ve never talked about it before. I know, as a high school counselor, this felt like an inadequacy that I had, like I didn’t know where to point students if they mention wanting to have a gap year, or I just didn’t know how valid it was that they were gonna go off and do this.

Lauren 0:20
So I am bringing on Julia Rogers today to talk about gap years, especially because right now, in October is gap year exploration month. You’re going to hear her define what a gap year is, and maybe it’ll help you, just as it helped me give some boundaries and some language as to what a gap year is and what it isn’t.

Lauren 0:38
She talks about how gap years allow students to have a defined period where they get to explore themselves, explore their personal, their practical and their professional interests, so they can start their post secondary life with more knowledge about themselves and more direction for what comes next.

Lauren 0:55
Now I know just even myself, like gap years are often misunderstood. We don’t know a lot about them, which is why I think this conversation is going to be extremely beneficial to high school counselors or other educators or even parents who might find themselves asking, what is a gap year? How do I help my student through it, and what resources are out there for them?

Lauren 1:17
So let me introduce you to Julia, and then we will get into the episode. Julia Rogers is a leading expert in the growing field of gap year education and a prominent advocate for the gap year movement. As president emeritus of Gap Year Association, she’s been instrumental in advancing the field through research, standard setting and advocacy, and you’ll hear her passion come through in the information that she’s going to be sharing with us.

Lauren 1:41
With over 15 years of experience as an accredited Gap Year counselor, Julia has dedicated her career to helping young adults navigate transformative educational experiences. She collaborates with educators, service learning organizations, nonprofits, government entities and families around the world to develop creative educational pathways that result in young adults being better prepared to succeed in life and work.

Lauren 2:06
And let me tell you, you’re going to hear some of these opportunities, and you’re going to want to take a gap year yourself. Julia is also a TEDx speaker, a podcast host and a frequent guest on local and national media outlets. When she’s not planning her next travel adventure, she enjoys playing in the mountains of Stove Vermont with her husband and her two daughters. Listen to the conversation that Julia and I had after we rolled the intro.

Lauren 2:34
You got into this profession to make a difference in your students’ lives, but you’re spread thin by all the things that keep getting added to your to do list.

Lauren 2:41
I can’t create more hours in the day, but I can invite you into my counselor clique where you’ll finally catch your breath. Come with me as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that’ll help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your students.

Lauren 2:55
I’m Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype girl here to help you energize your school counseling program and remind you of how much you love your job.

Lauren 3:07
Hey, Julia, welcome to the podcast. I’m excited to talk to you about gap years. I have not had anyone with this expertise and specialty talk to my listeners before. So welcome to the show.

Julia 3:18
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here as a fan of the show.

Lauren 3:21
Oh, yay.

Lauren 3:22
So I know in my mind how I would define a gap year. But will you give us some clarity? How do you define it, so that listeners and me are not making assumptions about what a gap year is.

Julia 3:35
For sure. So the official definition of a gap year that has come down from kind of the professional association is that a gap year is a intentional period of personal growth supported by activities of experiential learning. And so you’ll notice that that definition has some guardrails, but it’s also intentionally broad.

Julia 3:53
So the idea is that it’s an intentional choice. It’s not just something that’s happening to you by accident and that you’re filling it with meaning, but that meaning is so customizable and personalized to the individual that it can really take many forms.

Julia 4:04
And it’s also meant to be a not open ended period of time, but a defined period of time, but it can be a few months. It could be up to, you know, a year or even more. So it’s really up to the individual to kind of create those boundaries for themselves. But the main point is that it is intentional.

Lauren 4:19
Yeah, I like that. It’s an intentional thing. It has boundaries. It has a time frame on it. Like, kind of sounds like we’re setting a SMART goal here with, like, all of those things. Students will, will sometimes just say, I’m taking a gap year. And you’re like, Okay, well, like, what does that mean? You’re hoping that they have come up with something to fill that time. But sometimes it’s just, like, the fallback. That’s just what they say.

Julia 4:41
It’s the placeholder, right?

Lauren 4:43
Yeah, I don’t want to do the next thing. So like, this is what I’m going to say I’m doing, and I love that. This sounds more intentional. It is more intentional than just, I don’t know what’s next. So thank you for giving us that definition. As a counselor. I’m like, Yes, that’s what it should be.

Julia 5:00
Yeah, exactly what we don’t want is, we don’t want students kind of using that as a catch all for the rate that I don’t know. And so there’s when you are working with that as your working definition of as a counselor, it can give you so many great follow up questions to be asking a student afterwards.

Lauren 5:15
So if a student is interested in doing this gap year after they finish high school, what benefits do you see? Like, why would you encourage? Obviously, you’re a big fan of gap years. That’s what you’re here to talk about. Why would you encourage a student to look into these?

Julia 5:30
Well, first of all, I’m 100% biased, and I also am totally aware that this knowledge base is very niche, and it’s it’s not necessary that you, as a as a high school counselor or as an educator, know everything there is to know about gap time. But you know, especially this day and age when higher education is so expensive and we’re seeing this kind of sub generation of students who are still kind of pandemic affected and have had not the most normal adolescents, giving students this period of time to explore and experiment without having to make firm choices about higher education is so liberating for them.

Julia 6:04
And it’s so important on not just the personal growth level, but also in helping them get some clarity around their own professional goals and what types of career paths are interesting to them, and then what kind of educational path are going to be most appropriate for them. So it’s kind of this longer runway for them to explore more, and then hopefully they’re going to benefit from all of that learning in, you know, whenever they go into post secondary education.

Lauren 6:30
And so it’s like, this has always been a need, I think, for like students to be able to explore, but it sounds like you’re saying post pandemic, maybe even more so to have that freedom to explore that I mean, even maybe when they were at home and just not having that direction from counselors or that guidance from teachers of like, talking about what’s coming next.

Lauren 6:49
Like they missed a lot of those conversations, and so to get some of that time back to explore and think what’s next before rushing into the next thing, I could see that being a huge benefit to students,

Julia 6:59
Of course, and we’re also In this moment where the economy and what the world of work looks like is changing so much so even the people in the counseling and educating professions had a different, you know, role or like, they their their path to their profession, look different than what these young people are kind of looking at ahead of them.

Julia 7:16
So they’re also kind of, we’re all kind of like, grappling with this new economy and how people get to their work, and how many times you change your work, and what the skills and capabilities are of this. You know, current workforce in the future looks like.

Lauren 7:32
And I think you would find that counselors are huge advocates of like, whatever the right path is for the student. Like, we want that. We want it to be work, or two year school or four year school, or military or a gap year, like, whatever is going to be best for them. Like, we want to support them and give them the resources to get there.

Lauren 7:49
And I know we’re still helping parents, like, shape their mindset around that. Like, I do think parents seem like they’re coming around to that a little bit more. I mean, like you said, it’s so expensive to go to college. Why are we going to go to college if we’re not ready, if we don’t know what we want to study that? I think they’re like opening their eyes to that.

Lauren 8:06
And I think students are a lot more debt averse, like not wanting to take on that debt if it’s not something that they are really passionate about and excited about. So just talking about parents, if a parent has if they’re not understanding what a gap year could look like or they don’t see the benefits. Like, what kinds of conversations can we be having as counselors with those parents to help them navigate and help them understand?

Julia 8:30
I think that the you know, when you’re bringing up the idea of a gap year, it’s really important to frame it as a bridge. It is not the end. It is the thing that links the high school experience to the next step, whether that’s any of those other pathways.

Julia 8:44
So it is kind of, when I’m kind of imagining the pathway of a gap year, I’m thinking of it as like high school to gap year, and then to any of those other post secondary choices. And so that’s really helpful for parents to understand that this is not a gap life. It’s not a gap decade, right? It’s a gap period.

Lauren 9:00
Parents are probably glad to hear that. Gap life living in my basement playing video games.

Julia 9:06
Right? I know that’s like every parent’s greatest fear, but we’re, I think they also really fear the Boomerang, you know, situation where a student goes and then they have a failure to launch. And so a gap year should be, I think, to a lot of parents, when you kind of start breaking it down and giving them information about how to actually plan it and do it. Well, they usually come around to it.

Julia 9:24
And in my practice, what I see a lot is actually the parents who think it’s a good idea, and the students who are averse because they’re afraid of doing something different than their peers. So I almost think that we’re it’s like, flipped than it was 10 or 15 years ago, where students were like, I want to go on an adventure, and their parents like, Oh my God.

Julia 9:40
And now the parents are like, Hey, kid, like, go out into the world, have some adventures, and then make a decision. And the kids are the ones that are a little bit more averse to the idea of doing something that’s considered off the track, which I think has to do with how we’ve presented the pathways to post secondary education over the past generation.

Lauren 10:00
Totally. And do you you think it was like, pandemic life that, like, keeps students kind of tethered closer to home? Like, I’m seeing so many more students not wanting to get their driver’s license. Or I was like, I could not wait till the day I could get my permit and my driver’s license and, like, have that independence.

Lauren 10:15
And maybe it was I was first child or whatever, but I was like, ready to get out for an adventure, whatever that looked like. But I feel like students these days, and maybe I’m just making a broad brushstroke assumption are are wanting to, like, stay closer to home, and so a gap year might be intimidating to them.

Julia 10:33
Yes, and you know, I think that there are, there have been, I think, some social scientific studies around like this again, you know, this period of of young adulthood right now, and why those students may be kind of closer to home. It’s also good in some ways, because I think that one of the things that came out of the pandemic is that a lot of those family bonds are stronger, but then that desire to leave is also less strong, which we want students to fledge.

Julia 10:57
And you know, the other kind of misconception around a gap year sometimes is that it has to be super far away, like you do not have to go to Bhutan to have an amazing gap experience. The whole idea is that you’re getting out of your bubble.

Julia 11:08
So you don’t have to be far away from home, or even you can spend part, or even all of your gap year close to home, but you should be actively seeking opportunities that push you out of your comfort zone, that allow you to expand your worldview, that allow you to understand different lived experience.

Julia 11:23
And then also follow that framework of looking at your own personal growth and your professional growth so that you can, you know, feel like at the end of it, you’ve you’ve accomplished that set goal of, you know, learning more about yourself and what your pathway looks like.

Lauren 11:37
Give us, like, some examples of like, what things students might do in a gap year. Because what you just said, I imagine, like traveling around the world and one that, like takes time and money and but it sounds like it can be something that’s even closer to home, or like it doesn’t have to be just this one type of experience that could be a lot of different things. So tell us about maybe some examples of what you’ve seen or what the trends are.

Julia 12:01
This is usually the point of the conversation where I’m going to talk for a minute, and then everybody who’s listening, and including you, Lauren, are probably gonna be like, Oh, now I want to take a gap year. But so, so this is a warning to everybody that you might want to, like, brace yourself for wanting to take a sabbatical.

Julia 12:16
But you know, there’s, there’s basically, like, two broad categories of gap your opportunities. There’s things that are structured programs, and then there’s self designed activities, and so again, like geographically, I’d like everyone to imagine that these can happen in many different contexts. You can, for example, volunteer in your own community, or you can go and teach English in Costa Rica, or you can work with young monks in Sri Lanka or elephants in Thailand.

Julia 12:40
I mean, there are so many ways to serve, to serve a community, and you can choose that calibration of like, I want to serve my own community, or I want to practice foreign language and serve a different community. There’s also experiential programs that are what we call, you know, literally, gap year programs. If you were to Google ‘gap year programs’, there’s these highly structured, highly mentored experiences that usually last somewhere between six and 14 weeks in length.

Julia 13:03
And the whole idea of those is that they are the plug and play. There are going to be experiences that you get to kind of calibrate the type of theme. So that might be outdoor adventure, might be arts and culture, might be a language immersion type of opportunity, but it’s going to be something that a parent especially is going to feel like, okay, I can just send my kid on that opportunity, and they’re going to be well taken care of, and it’s going to be a highly, high quality growth experience.

Julia 13:25
There’s also interning opportunities, and that can happen close to home, or you can go intern in Cape Town, South Africa, or Dublin, Ireland. You can do all these international interning experiences. You can do enrichment courses like getting your scuba certification, or doing a boat building course in Maine and learning how to work with your hands and or take painting classes in Florence, Italy, or any of those kinds of things.

Lauren 13:47
You’re serious. All of these things are I’m ready to go right now, like, let me go pack my bag right, right?

Julia 13:53
And then, you know, and all those things, I know that people might be thinking, Well, those are huge investments. And that is true. There is a level of investment, usually financially, but of course, of also effort and time in a lot of these programs. But there’s also a lot of AmeriCorps opportunities that are open to people who have high school degrees, and those not always are thought of as gap opportunities, but I think that they are some of the most highly accessible and high like output, as far as your own growth is concerned.

Julia 14:18
So things like city, year N, Triple C, Public Allies, a lot of Conservation Corps where you can do trail building and working on public lands. Those are all open to high school graduates. So that’s an amazing experience because it’s fully funded, and you get an education award for higher education at the end of your service. So those are all great gap year opportunities too.

Julia 14:36
And then we have even talked about the self design things that are all things that like, that’s the backpack in Europe, or that’s the, you know, working closer to home, or even you can get a working holiday visa and work in Australia or New Zealand. I mean, I could go on and on, but that’s just to give you a sense of the range of opportunities.

Julia 14:50
There’s so much out there. And so it’s really about learning about the individual student and helping guide them towards researching different experiences based on what they’re capable of and interested in doing.

Lauren 15:00
Okay, I love that. It feels so customizable for the student, depending on what their goals are and what their interests are, and even just like, what their financial options are, like you’re saying, right? Some of these might cost a lot of money, like, that’s very realistic, even just the plane ticket to get around the world to do some of these things.

Lauren 15:15
Or it can be closer to home, or you can get credit after you finish and just have something to show for it that’s super encouraging that there are a lot of options.

Julia 15:23
Yeah and, you know, I think that, just to add on to that, you know, you also need to think about the student, because if they’re, for example, like a student who struggled with mental health challenges, or someone who’s highly anxious and clearly would not thrive on day one of college, then investing in like, one of those highly structured experiential semesters could be the best thing that’s ever happened to them.

Julia 15:43
Because they could grow in the ways that are going to allow them to thrive in college, and then it ends up being a good investment for a family. And conversely, you might talk to a super independent just one of those, like, you look at them and you’re like, we could be friends, kind of students.

Julia 15:55
And they might be ready to work for six months and really earn a bunch of money and then travel on their own for six months and completely self fund their year within this kind of like, if you think of it as like a closed loop system, you can actually self fund a lot of experiences and have some amazing adventures. And it doesn’t mean you’re going into debt as a result your gap year, you’re actually earning to spend. If that makes sense.

Lauren 16:14
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And like you said, if you were just gonna front the money to send this student to four year college who has mental health issues, and they end up coming home for a semester on like, medical leave. It’s like, where, where would our money have been better invested?

Lauren 16:29
Like developing their independence and their advocacy, like their self efficacy, to be able to go do that? Probably there. I mean, one, it’s going to cost you time, money, energy. You have to look at that cost analysis, I guess, to decide what’s going to be best for the student. And I love just thinking about how we as counselors can can know the student well enough to say, Hey, I think this could be a really good option for you.

Julia 16:53
Yes, exactly. And you can also actually get college credit and use college savings money for some of those more structured Gap Year opportunities. They have routes and relationships with some colleges and universities, so you can actually use like, 529 savings, money and things like that for some of these experiences.

Lauren 17:09
That’s great to know. I feel like parents and students don’t really know that’s an option. I did not know that was an option.

Julia 17:14
Yeah, well now you all do.

Lauren 17:16
There we go.

Lauren 17:19
I wanted to let you know about my free, editable starter scholarship spreadsheet to keep your high school students organized and motivated while pursuing financial aid for college. There’s an entire tab dedicated to the undocumented student resources as well as schools that meet 100% need for students.

Lauren 17:35
Students and counselors can stay organized with this spreadsheet and upcoming scholarship deadlines with the month by month tabs. If you already own this, head back and redownload it because it’s been updated for this school year. Download your copy for free today by going to counselorclique.com/scholarship. Now back to the show.

Lauren 17:57
You said kind of in the beginning, like as counselors, it’s okay that we don’t know all the answers to these things. Like, this is one of those things where I would probably have a student next to me and say, well, like, let’s look this up together. If that’s something you’re interested in. Like, let’s find this information out together. Because there are so many different pathways for students, so many different options.

Lauren 18:15
Like, what you just said, it could be formal, it could be informal. So if a student comes to us and says, I’m interested in a gap year where should we like what are our next steps that we should take with them? Where should we point them towards, or what resources are out there?

Julia 18:29
For sure. Well, one thing that I would say is that if you have the capacity to do a goal setting exercise with them, that’s a great thing to get them going, especially if you’re suspicious that this could be a fake gap year student, and it’s a nice follow up question to say, Oh, you’re taking a gap year that’s so great. Let’s talk about your goals for your gap time.

Julia 18:48
And I have a super easy exercise that can walk you through if that’s helpful.

Lauren 18:51
Yeah, let’s do it.

Julia 18:52
Okay, cool. So I like to categorize Gap Year intentions or anchors in three categories, personal, practical and professional. So the personal stuff is going to be things that a student just wants to do or learn for fun. So hobbies like, they want to get better at their Spanish, or they want to make time to write, or they want to, you know, try surfing for the first time, whatever, like, let them dream big and make a list of things that they would like to spend their gap year time doing. That is more for their own just enjoyment and fun and joy.

Julia 19:20
And then the practical stuff is going to be life skills. So do they need to learn how to budget? Do they need to learn how to drive and get their driver’s licenses? Have a lot of students doing that. Do they want to gain independent living skills, etc, etc, etc? And then the pre professional stuff is going to be, what do you think you want to do or study? And then what types opportunities might give you that knowledge?

Julia 19:40
So after that you have like these things that you can start researching from. Because one of the, I think, usual paths that people take when they’re considering gap time is they just start Googling Gap Year stuff. And that can get overwhelming very quickly, as you can probably…

Lauren 19:55
It can be anything you want it to be. So you’re gonna find the you’re gonna find too many answers on Google.

Julia 19:59
Exactly. But whereas if you say, Oh, well, this student says that they want to practice their photography, and they want to, you know, also travel some places. So maybe there’s some like, travel photography options, or there’s an opportunity where they might be able to use that skill in a certain setting. So once the student has kind of some goals or anchors to their year, the research process gets a lot easier.

Julia 20:20
There’s also a website called The Gap Year Association. It’s an organization that I’m on the board of, and that is a, basically the industry governing body of the gap year option. And there are so many resources for counselors on that website and students and parents, but they have a Student Planning Guide.

Julia 20:35
They have, actually, they have a re entry guide as well. So when a student comes back from a gap year you can download the PDF. But the Student Planning Guide is a great thing to point students to as well, because it goes through some of those types of exercises, and it has voices from past students that give advice and things like that.

Julia 20:49
So that’s another great resource. And they also have program listings. So if you want to kind of not have to learn about every gap your program that’s out there, but want to share a resource where they can see all different types of gap year opportunities, that’s another great resource of that website.

Lauren 21:02
That sounds awesome. And I imagine that a student who comes to their counselor with like, look at all this research I did, and look, I’ve done the planning. And they go to their parent and say, Look, I’ve done the planning. As a parent, I would be like, Oh, wow, you’re serious about this. And look, there are things out there.

Lauren 21:17
I would just see it way more seriously than the gap year that has no end or like, is this being taken seriously? So that’s cool that you have those resources out there to offer to students, just to at least get them started and thinking about it, where they start it, and they’re like, Oh, this isn’t what I thought it was. I’m moving on to the next thing. Just give some clarity either way. Yeah.

Julia 21:37
And you might have a student who’s, again, one of those people, who’s a big dreamer, and they might say, like, I think I’m gonna buy a van and do van life for a year. And that might sound to you as a counselor like, whoa, that’s like a lot to take on.

Julia 21:48
But I come across students all the time who’ve done these crazy kinds of things on their gap year, including like Van life and starting their own businesses or nonprofits and things like that. So yeah, it’s kind of about like, helping that encouragement, which I feel like school counselors are like the best at. So I think that it’s such a great person to have in your corner if you know how to point people in the right direction.

Lauren 22:09
Yeah, and even, who cares if it’s living in a van, if they have those, like, three categories, kind of of things that they plan on learning, like they’re gonna come out and be like, wow, I’ve accomplished these goals that I set out for, and this gap year, like, served me well for the year. So that’s cool.

Julia 22:25
Yeah. And we think about, like, a lot of times I’ll ask people adults, you know, what was the most impactful educational experience of your young life? And so often I hear, Oh, when I, like, was studying abroad, or when I was, you know, bumming around Southeast Asia for a couple years because I was in between jobs.

Julia 22:43
And you get all these wild answers, but a lot of times it’s like outside the classroom experiences.

Lauren 22:47
Exactly what I was going to say outside..

Julia 22:49
Sometimes you got to leave the classroom to return to it with that much more knowledge and seriousness. And that’s what we see a lot of in gap year students is a return to the classroom with more intention.

Lauren 22:59
Yeah, and I’m sure counselors listening would say this. I felt this way. Even in grad school, the real learning of how to be a high school counselor happened when you were thrown in and you were doing your practicum and your internship, and there wasn’t someone just hovering over you.

Lauren 23:14
You were just trying to figure it out and then coming back for feedback and having some of that structure, but also being thrown to the wolves and trying to figure out how it’s done. Okay, tell us a little bit about Gap Year Exploration Month, since this episode is coming out in October, and that is the month that you’re celebrating that.

Julia 23:32
I know this. It is a celebratory month. It’s kind of, it’s our industry’s awareness holiday. Because, you know, like so many people, once they start to kind of get to know the gap year option, I think that their mind expands so much into Wow, why don’t we encourage every student to do this?

Julia 23:47
Because it is so much more accessible once you get to know what’s out there than one might initially think. So that’s the whole idea of Gap Year Exploration Month is to spread awareness around the gap year and also share stories and elevate the types of experiences that can be super impactful and empowering to young people. So there is a website. It’s gapyearexplorationmonth.com, which will bring you to a landing page that’s on the GYE website. That’s the gap your association kind of houses that awareness holiday for us.

Julia 24:15
So within that website, you’ll see videos of gap your alums and program leaders and parents. So that’s a great resource to share with your students, if you want to say, hey, check out these students stories. They’ll be telling, you know, all sorts of little videos on social media, as Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube will all have Gap Year exploration of videos uploaded all throughout October.

Julia 24:35
And then also, you know, one of the things that the gap year association is aiming to do is to bring more resources to school counselors and also learn about your needs, because we would love to produce more resources and information for school counselors. So we’re hoping to bring more people into that community, and the way that they have chosen to do that is to create a little promo for school counselor.

Julia 24:55
So throughout the whole month of October, they’re doing a $10 annual membership to join GYA. And with that membership, like, right off the bat, you get a resource packet that includes, like, a PowerPoint of so you have a gap year, you know, PowerPoint presentation that you could give to students, and handouts and PDFs and things like that.

Julia 25:12
So it’s a really great it’s a really great community to be a part of, but it’s also like a great value if you’re looking for just some back end resources to have at the ready. And so that promo code, if you go to the GYA website, is GYEM2024 so G, Y, E, M, 2024

Lauren 25:26
Okay, well, we’ll definitely add that in the show notes. That sounds incredible, like if you’re just looking for another way to develop yourself professionally and have those resources on hand for students, it sounds like there are free resources on there, or the $10 membership for the year.

Lauren 25:42
I know that that would be just incredible to be able to sit down with a student, especially in October. I feel like that’s when we’re having a lot of the conversations with seniors about what’s next. And you know, the ones who come in really knowing exactly what they’re doing in August and September, by the time you get to October, if they might be wavering. They might be starting to think, well, maybe it isn’t four year college that is for me in this next pathway. Like, let me try gap year first. And so I’m appreciative of your resources right now during this month.

Julia 26:12
Yeah, definitely. And you might also find that students who apply to college, you know that obviously this fall is kind of crazy for them, but they may come back to you once they hear back from colleges in the spring and say, Actually, I think I want to defer, or actually, I think I want to reapply next year, and those kinds of things. So you may see, like, two kind of waves of gap your students, the like, I’m not going straight to college Gappers in the fall, and then the kind of, I’m taking a deferral year in the spring.

Lauren 26:36
Yeah, that’s a great point. And kind of why that year long membership would be helpful. It’s like, it’s not just one month of the year that we’re going to need this information. It’s they’re going to trickle in all year.

Julia 26:47
Yeah, the Gap Year Association also has like, a sample deferral letter on their website, so you can actually see what colleges want to see in a deferral letter if you get those queries from your students as well.

Lauren 26:57
Yeah, wow. You’ve given us so many good resources. Are there any other resources that we need to know about going into just taking this information with us and sharing it with our students?

Julia 27:07
Yeah, actually, I’ve got two, three, maybe three others. Okay, so there’s a website called gooverseas.com that’s a great website for other program listings. So it’s a little bit more exhaustive of a lot more opportunities than even the GYA website.

Julia 27:20
So you can find teaching English as a foreign language opportunity, working opportunities, other types of volunteer and travel opportunities on that website also has great articles and has like, a whole Gap Year section. Also, if you’re thinking about a sabbatical year, there’s some really great ideas on there for that too.

Lauren 27:35
So counselors hear this. If you are wanting to take a gap year, here’s your information, right?

Julia 27:40
There’s no wrong time. I’ve taken, like, three gap years already and then go overseas. Also runs. They have kind of a side business called USA Gap Year fairs. And these are actually, like college fairs, but specifically for Gap Year opportunities. And they do a circuit all over the country January and February and sometimes into early March every year. So this is perfect timing to kind of check that schedule.

Julia 27:59
It’ll probably be listed on the USA gap your affairs website and see if there’s something near you. It’s a great thing to go to as a counselor, because it’s usually just a couple hours in an evening, and you can let you can see all these different tables of gap your opportunities. And they always have a speaker.

Julia 28:00
Myself and some of my gap year counselor colleagues do keynotes at those fairs. So that’s a great way to, again, just increase your knowledge base. And then the last one is another organization called teen life. They also put out gap your guides and GAP your program listings on their website, so just three other places you can either look yourself or send students to.

Lauren 28:30
That’s awesome. We have a lot of homework to do after listening to this. Everything will be linked in the show notes or on my website. Everything that Julia talked about on here. This was awesome. Is there anything that we didn’t talk about Julia, that you wanted to make sure that listeners heard or knew?

Julia 28:47
I would just say that, you know, on a personal level, I just mentioned, like, gap year counselors. And so that’s another form of resource that you could use, you know, if you need, if you have a student who has a lot of ideas, and you’re like, wow, that that exceeds my capacity big time.

Julia 29:00
On the Gap Year Association website, there’s also a subsection of professional Gap Year Counselors, of which I am one, and there’s a bunch of others that are accredited through the gap year association. So that’s another resource for asking questions, referring students, anything like that. So there are people out there who can kind of help usher a student through that process. If you feel like you it’s just beyond your ability, because I know how much you all do on a daily basis.

Lauren 29:23
That’s great. So you can be an additional resource or others on on the website. So we will link all of your places. I know you’ve got YouTube and Instagram, and, like you said, Tiktok, all the things. So we’ll make sure that people get over there and they can watch some of those videos and hear from past Gap Year Experiences and students and I just thank you for this time. It has been a wealth of information. I know people are going to love hearing about this topic, because it’s not something we’ve talked about before.

Julia 29:50
Great. Well, thank you so much for having me, Lauren, and happy Gap Year Exploration Month!

Lauren 29:54
Yay. Okay, if that didn’t motivate you to look into gap years either for yourself or for your students, I don’t know what will i am so excited to take these resources and to continue learning more about gap years, especially with this month being Gap Year Exploration Month. I know that all of the resources that she has are gonna be really valuable for you as a high school counselor, to be able to offer to your students and families.

Lauren 30:18
And then when you’re following her over on Instagram or Tiktok, or wherever you’re choosing to engage and get that information, it’s going to be valuable, and you’re going to start learning so much about this alternate pathway that maybe you hadn’t really considered for your students or maybe even yourself.

Lauren 30:34
You’ll have to let me know if you pack your bags and you take a sabbatical gap year as a high school counselor. I’ll see you next week.

Lauren 30:42
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of High School Counseling Conversations. All the links I talked about today can be found in the show notes and also at counselorclique.com/podcast.

Lauren 30:53
Be sure to hit follow wherever you listen to your podcast so that you never miss a new episode. Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me a DM @counselorclique. That’s C, L, I, Q, U, E, I’ll see you next week.

Connect with Lauren:

Cheers + Happy Listening!

Like what you’re hearing? Follow and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other high school counseling friends find it!

Can’t contain your excitement? Share the pod! Tell a friend! Your word-of-mouth referrals mean the world to me!

Share it:

Email
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter

You might also like...