<p>Forty-two years ago I felt just as you do: burned out from hard work in a rigorous high school, and anxious to do some living before buckling down again. What I didn’t understand was that the best way to “do some living” was probably to go to college and interact with peers, explore interests, enjoy the city, all things available to you at BU.</p>
<p>I wish I had gone, honestly. The bottom line is that life works out regardless, but taking a full gap year may, indeed, isolate you, and you may not enjoy going back to college so much after a year off. It can go either way. When you are 23 and still in college, you may wish you had just gone ahead and gone, too (though many of us today spend decades on a degree, so you won’t be unusual).</p>
<p>If you are tired, consider other options: take the fall off, or go this fall but tell yourself that you can take a leave of absence for spring term; look into taking a reduced courseload (3 classes) and make it up later. If you are working full time now, can you take a few weeks off in August and relax?</p>
<p>The college students I know do way more traveling than the kids I know who did not go, with the idea of travel. I know several kids who delayed college, and Woofed or Couch Surfed or backpacked and came back tired and disappointed. In contrast, study abroad during the year or summer, in a college program, provides a home base for deeper exploration of a culture, and a focus. Many schools provide grants for travel as well.</p>
<p>Is there any chance that you are depressed? I am not pathologizing your feelings, I promise: your questioning is mature and justified. But some kids do get a boost from either counseling or short-term meds for the transition to school. If this is totally off base, please forgive me: just a thought. At Harvard, I have read, 50% of students fall in this category!</p>
<p>I strongly advise you to try school, but give yourself a break in some way, either by letting yourself try a break after first semester, if needed (you can decide in late fall) or by taking fewer courses. If you start, you will have a school and friends to come back to after a gap term. </p>
<p>Only you know the extent of your burnout. All I can say, from the vantage point of experience and even some hard-earned wisdom, is that really “living life” and developing as a human being usually happens in ordinary day to day ways, not in dramatic experiences like travel. I have watched my kids grow and mature in the college years in truly amazing ways, and not one of them has yet left the country!</p>
<p>(If money is an issue, then that is another thing to consider. I have responded without addressing the money concerns, except to say, again, that travel and living abroad will be subsidized by colleges in many cases, and if you go on your own, you will have to earn the full costs of travel.)</p>