Adventure and Experience - Take a Gap Year

Travelling and exploring is essential to adventurous, global Gen Y’s – and the best way to make the most of life and accumulate stories to retell. Taking working holidays, volunteering and living overseas are all part of the fun!

Very few Gen Y friends of mine have held back from taking a gap year once the idea and excitement sets in. The voice inside shouts: “Financial difficulties are never insurmountable! I’ll figure it out along the way. Career is something that can be paused and returned to! LET’S GO!”

This trend is not surprising considering Gen Y widely reported common traits: experience seekers, experimental, don’t plan for the long term and are desperate for things to happen immediately. Taking a gap year has become a major stage in life for youth who spend and live for today!

Many career websites as well as the Australian Government are recognising the appeal to youth of travelling, earning money, gaining skills and life experiences. The gap year is an opportunity to build career credentials, demonstrate personal strengths (eg initiative and determination), and a time to experiment with working in different industries and to get a feel of what the real working world is like. Career path is something that can be paused. However despite the career building rationale, the groundswell appeal of the gap year is fuelled mostly by the thrill of living a life of adventure!

Taking a gap year is becoming a norm, a natural and unquestionable part of life. Traditionally the ‘gap year’ is considered the first year after leaving high school, however this has evolved to encompass more broadly any time after leaving school, during tertiary studies and training, and through to the early stages of their career. A study by STA Travel found that “over 25% have taken a gap year between university and work and over 40% hope to take a gap year during their career.”