<p>What are the pro/cons for taking a gap year?</p>
<p>Pros</p>
<p>-Avoid burnout. Going straight through can be brutal, especially if you aim for a doctoral program.
-Get some work experience that could potentially make you a more competitive applicant.
-Save some money, and potentially reduce your debt burden as a graduate student.
-Focus your interests. Work experience can help you realize you actually want to study Y instead of X, or help you narrow down the perfect program or adviser for you.
-You may realize that you can pursue your dream career without a graduate degree, which allows you to save a TON of money, time, and headache.
-Learn how to balance “real life” outside of being a student; this time management/balancing may become useful when you do similar balancing in graduate school.
-Learn a real-life skill that may help you land a part-time job in grad school that can support you.</p>
<p>Cons</p>
<p>-You’ll be older when you finish your graduate degree. This may mean that you have to defer things like homeownership, marriage, and/or children for longer if you want to wait until you are finished before you pursue these things.
-You’ll have a lot more free time if you get full-time work, so you may get out of practice in the juggling act that is being a student. Some people have told me it is really hard to go from the freedom of having evenings and weekends to yourself to having to use that time study.
-You’ll be out of practice living like a student, depending on how much money you make. Some of my friends who took time off made substantially more and found it difficult to readjust back to living frugally off loans or part-time jobs.
-You’ll be out of practice in writing papers, deeply reading theory in your field, and other grad student-type activities.
-Depending on the program, if you take too much time off from doing academic stuff/stuff related to your field, professors may question your commitment to the field. (1-3 years is not enough time for this to happen. I’m talking about if you take 5+ years and do nothing related to your field, and then try to re-enter it.)</p>
<p>Personally, I went straight from undergrad to graduate school. I do not recommend it, and if I could do it all over again, I would’ve taken 2-3 years before getting a PhD. I might go directly into a master’s program, but not a PhD. The biggest reason, IMO, is that it’s very difficult to know 100% what you want to do when you’re just graduating from college. You think you know - I certainly thought I did. But as a 22-year-old who has likely been in school for all of your life, it’s hard to imagine a wide range of career fields - you simply have not been exposed to that many.</p>
<p>Working for 2-5 years after college gives you a chance to really explore career fields - read widely, talk to a lot of people, work some jobs to find out what you like and don’t like, watch the economy a bit, and really establish what’s important to you. For example, every 22 year old I knew claimed that money was not important to them; they just wanted to be happy in a job they really, really loved. Living like a nomad in a tiny apartment making pennies was not daunting at that age. That changes a LOT for most people once you hit 25-27. Suddenly, economic and job security are a lot more important to you, as is residential stability. So the career fields that seemed appealing to you when you were younger may no longer be appealing, and you may be more inclined to find a good melding of something you love and something that will provide economic stability. Or you may just plain realize that whatever you love, you don’t love enough (or you love too much, actually) to do for a living, and you’d rather do something else.</p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>
<p>I also went straight through to graduate school in physics and I don’t regret it at all. It was what I wanted to do and what I am still doing 38 years later as a professor of physics at a research university. My son, on the other hand, took a gap year before his M.S. and then 2 years before starting the Ph.D. It was the right decision for him and probably the right thing for his field, evolutionary biology.</p>
<p>A lot of it depends on your field and your plans. In engineering, it is probably a good idea to get work experience before going to graduate school. In physics, not so much.</p>
<p>I’dd add to Juillet’s excellent list the “pro” of being able to put together more complete and unrushed Grad School applications. You will have complete transcripts, maybe you got an award at graduation, extra time to meet with profs who will write your LORs. I did several degrees and took a gap after each due to sheer exhaustion. I do think that I got into the schools that I did because of the care I put into the applications that I could not have during a school year.</p>
<p>I took a gap year and it was the best decision I ever made - I changed directions in my career and completely changed the graduate field I was looking at.</p>
<p>A “gap year” doesn’t mean you don’t do anything. It means you explore what you want to do in the “real world.” Armed with that information, you may be better-equipped to decide what graduate program you want to pursue. Being that graduate school is much more focused and specific on a narrow track, the more certain you are of that track, the more likely you are to persevere through the challenges you will face as a graduate student and complete your degree. If you get halfway through a program and realize you don’t really like that field… you’re kind of hosed.</p>
<p>I think if you’re going to take a gap year just make sure you actually have a plan for using that year productively. It can be difficult to find a job in this economy and you don’t want your gap year to truly become a “gap” in your resume. </p>
<p>Do schools support gap years by providing programs or financially? And I’m planning to take 1year of break just to have a full application for grad school and to apply for fellowships which i want to put some time on. Also, I want to have some time to decide whether to go for a phd or a MSdegree. Do you guys think this is a valid reason? Thanks!</p>
<p>There are a few gap year programs - like the Hot Metal Bridge program at University of Pittsburgh, Columbia’s bridge program or the NIH baccalaureate programs. There aren’t a lot of them, though, and most of these bridge programs are designed for students who know they want a PhD but need stronger applications or just more time. If you’re deciding whether you want to do a PhD or an MS, you’d probably be better off getting a full-time job - and you may want to take 2 years off instead of just 1.</p>
<p>And yes, that’s a valid reason.</p>
<p>I would move focus your interests to number one on jullet’s list of pros. I started working right after college (I think the idea of a “gap year” only applies to between high school and undergrad, after undergrad it’s just called working), and it was the best decision I ever made. While I still want to work in the same field, now that I’ve had several years experience in it, I know specifically what I’m interested in and what I’m not. Things I was sure I wanted to do when I was 22, I’m now no longer interested in, and I’ve had time for new, more mature, and hopefully lasting interests to develop. I know things now that at 22 I would never even have thought of. I now also have valuable professional contacts and I think I’ll contribute more to my grad school cohort because I have more real world experiences to share. </p>
<p>It’s a different choice for everyone, and a lot depends on your program and your ultimate field. Some professions place heavy emphasis on academic credentials over professional experience. And If you want to get your PhD, or other doctoral degree, I could understand wanting to start as soon as possible. But I think it’s worth it to wait and give yourself time to grow. </p>
<p>juillet >> What are the NIH baccalaureate programs you are referring?</p>