Critical Reading Assignment
Date: 3/31/21
To: Professor Hach
From: Aixa Kou
In the article it talks about how some students take a gap year before attending college they choose to give back by helping Americorps and several other large service programs as well. This would be by giving back by feeding the homeless, cleaning up the parks. This would be helping society and benefiting college students because they would get some aid in their college because they would offer students scholarships if they participated in giving back to the community by taking a gap year in return for going to college the next following year.
What Zimmerman’s is claiming is that if students given an opportunity to take a gap year it would be beneficial to not only the students, but society as a whole. As well as not waiting for congress or the president to do the right thing. In the text it states, “A handful of institutions — including Princeton and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — already offer aid to students who want to defer their admission for a year. And last year, Duke announced it would provide scholarships for 15 to 20 accepted students who undertake approved gap-year projects.” This is illustrating, how many students who decided to give back to America would be getting a positive outcome for college for giving back by having aid in their college financially. As well as receiving college credit towards the following year when they attend college. It says “ But colleges might team up with domestic agencies like AmeriCorps or the Student Conservation Association, which provides gap-year opportunities in habitat restoration and other environmental activities. Depending on the circumstances, colleges might also offer course credit for service. At the New School, in New York, students taking a gap year with the school’s partner organization can earn up to a full year of academic credit. That way, service doesn’t add to the overall length — or the cost — of college”. This provides a student given a headstart in college by giving them college credit for taking a gap year.
Zimmerman language is and message is pretty clear on how it can benefit a student by giving them a year of giving back to American by providing an example when he says “But most of those efforts fund students who go abroad, often on expensive, sponsored volunteer trips. While her father was still in the White House — and before she enrolled at Harvard — Malia Obama went on a pricey service-learning trip to Bolivia and Peru. It’s hard to imagine less-wealthy institutions or families ponying up for that.” This is basically explaining, how Malia Obama took a gap year before attending Harvard to give back to society because she wanted to make a difference in the world by giving back to it.
I feel Zimmerman’s idea is not a bad idea but it has its flaws, I believe students will take the gap year because the benefits they will receive is why they would really want to give back to society because it would help them get a scholarship toward their school they are attending. I feel it wouldn’t be a hundred percent Genuent because it wouldn’t be coming from their hearts since they know they are getting something in return which would be most likely the only reason they decided to participate in “making society better.”