Why Should We Take A Gap Year?

College can be hard for many of us, especially when it comes to initiating our first year as college freshmen. Tuition, applications, housing, and other things run around our conscious while going through this stressful period of time. Sometimes, our first year can be the hardest for some people with different life situations such as sick relatives, money insecurities, personal challenges, and other situations that might make the moment of going to college almost impossible for some people. In this reading, Zimmerman expresses his concern according to upcoming first-year college students and how a gap year can be beneficial to not only our collegiate experience but as well as our mental state; a way to start stronger rather than having something else to worry about right away. 

Zimmerman stated that with a gap year before starting our college experience, students might be able to navigate life and make more connections such as doing volunteer work, helping communities, or doing any other activity that might enrich the student’s social life and social connection. With this, he also mentioned how this can help students to remind that life also consists of not only being surrounded by like-minded people who like you are aiming to get a degree.

Zimmerman states his emotions towards writing this article, anger and frustrations are the main emotions that are displayed in his words. The way he is trying to connect with his audience is through relating to student’s frustration towards the educational system. As a college student, a gap year is very much needed for physical and mental health since jumping directly to a higher educational regiment can be really overwhelming and can impact negatively our performance in the future. However, I do find this article something written out of pure blinding anger which made the writer not word his statements according to what he intended to address to the public. By this, I mean that this article has the potential to get to higher positioned individuals in this field but might be considered as “Another student complaining issue”. It was very confusing trying to find what he wanted to state with this article and his message intended to be delivered through it. It is important to also state the possible consequences of a gap year and how this might affect our educational journey which in this article was not stated. A gap year does not only affect our motivation towards our education but also can affect our chances of entrance into institutions since after a gap year some people realize that after getting accepted into a job position or other similar things, money replaces the satisfaction of acquiring a degree.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18r4SKXTdqvNXe1fj1GEd_HfV9kxyotyBLPCxns_PUu0/edit?usp=sharing