She's talking about a gap year

takeitallin
Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:04:18 +0000

I think a lot of kids would benefit from a gap year. We suggested it to our D but she chose not to because she was so caught up in that thinking that she would be too old when she graduated, etc. In hindsight, we should have pushed it more, although she probably still would not have listened to us. She attended a rigorous high school program and was in all AP/IB classes. By the time she graduated, she was totally burned out and wanted as little to do with academics as possible. She was having serious reservations about college, but decided she would be OK because of a more performance based program with all like minded students at a conservatory. However, once she started school, she found she did not feel challenged enough academically, and that she actually did not enjoy being around only performing arts students. That is not to say others would not love that atmosphere, but she found she actually missed a more typical college atmosphere. This, after her thinking she would be happy never to see the inside of an academic classroom again. Fortunately, she figured this out relatively quickly and left the program. She stayed at home and got her AA at our local comm. college, worked and saved money, and did local shows for 1-1/2 years. Then she reapplied to MT programs. This time, while she still chose a BFA program, it is at a regular university. She made a point of finding non-performing arts roommates. She was only able to transfer in as a soph. instead of a jr. , but since she has her comm. college units that satisfy her GE requirements, she is able to take some very challenging and interesting literature, history, and political science courses that she loves. We think that if she had taken that gap year after high school, she would have recognized that she was just burned out, and maybe been more realistic about what she wanted out of a college program. In the end, who knows if it would have made any difference, but I think she would have had time to wind down and examine her options more calmly if she had taken some sort of a gap year. While we had experience with older kids in more “normal” majors, it is so different with an MT kid. Wish I knew then what I know now!