<p>I am currently attending a Junior college in my hometown and i have just been planning on getting my gen ed done and over with. I’ve had a plan set that after i finish at my junior college i would take a break from school and from transferring straight to a 4 year university and instead go to Europe and backpack across there for about 6 months. I was wondering if this would be a smart idea and if it would look good if i put it on my college app or mentioned it in one of the essays i would write. Knowing that this break could actually benefit me in school would really reassure my parents about this idea that i’ve always been interested in.</p>
<p>I don’t see how going to Europe for six months is going to help you academically.</p>
<p>Perhaps, you could write an essay about what you have learned and how you have grown as a person… ?</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>I don’t think there is a place to write down “I have gone on a trip to Europe” unless the trip is sponsored by your school or by one of organizations.</p>
<p>This is a trip that has not occurred yet and will occur <em>after</em> transferring and <em>after</em> you have finished a year at your new transfer school. Correct?</p>
<p>If so, writing about something you have not done yet is not a compelling essay topic or essay component. I am not an adcom, but if I read about this idea of taking a year off for backpacking between junior and senior year of college, unless it was one of the college’s programs, I would ignore the idea or think it was a really strange essay topic.</p>
<p>Note that even if you write in your college essay “I wanna take a break after a year at your college and backpack around Europe” and you get accepted to the college, that in no way endorses or supports your idea that the college itself has given the backpacking trip its seal of approval. The only thing it might say is the college doesn’t disqualify transfer students for mentioning such goals in their essays.</p>
<p>My question is why you can’t take a break in 2 years, AFTER you finish your college degree and then travel Europe. There is nothing special about traveling before your senior year vs after your senior year.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are pros and cons to taking a break vs. sticking it out and finishing first. Another thought is to take a 4 - 5 week trip to Europe during the summer first. You may find that the travel isn’t as romantic and fulfilling as you imagine it to be. Or it may help stave off the need to do a 6 month trip for awhile. At the very least, you’d get a taste for travel at a fraction of the cost (money and time) and yet not interrupt your college track.</p>
<p>Back when I was in college, I had a friend who was crazy for Britain and London - he obsessed on going there. He went there for a summer between soph and junior year of college. It was definitely a great experience, but afterwards he was a bit sheepish and admitted that it wasn’t the be-all end-all experience that he had imagined it to be. It has been 20 years now and he hasn’t been back.</p>
<p>I have another friend, who after graduating college spent almost a year backpacking across Europe and a few other far-east places with her husband (whom she married a few months after graduation). I believe they worked for awhile first to save up a bit of cash and then traveled until they ran out of money some 10+ months later. They loved the experience and travel regularly around the world to this day. However, they deliberately finished college first, saved up a bundle of cash (they traveled as cheap as they could), and then went.</p>
<p>For the trip I have planned I wouldn’t yet be in a transfer school. I’ll be finishing my sophomore year at the junior college next year, I am still a freshman right now. So I will not yet be at a transfer school when I plan on going on this trip. I am also still yet unsure about what I am
Majoring in in college.
Sorry if there was any confusion about my transferring situation</p>