Anybody taken a gap year after college?

Looking at suggestions of places to go, hopefully some place where I can do a bit of part time work to fund the trip while I'm over there. Hopefully will be heading somewhere far away from the UK for a bit of a challenge, but I don't want a total culture clash just yet!

Also if anybody at all has done something similar it'd be great to hear what advice you'd give to someone in my position

Australia, you can get a years working visa (up to the age of 30) and Australians are basicly English with a tan (but don't tell them that)

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Originally Posted by Darksaviour69

Australia, you can get a years working visa (up to the age of 30) and Australians are basicly English with a tan (but don't tell them that)

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Cockneys with a tan, although they have been Americanizing their language with new words since the 1950's. :cool:

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Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Australian English began diverging from British English shortly after the foundation of the Australian penal colony of New South Wales in 1788. British convicts sent there, (including Cockneys from London[2]), came mostly from large English cities. They were joined by free settlers, military personnel and administrators, often with their families. However, a large part of the convict body were Irish, with at least 25% directly from Ireland[citation needed], and others indirectly via Britain. There were other populations of convicts from non-English speaking areas of Britain, such as the Welsh and Scots. English was not spoken,[citation needed] or was poorly spoken, by a large part of the convict population and the dominant English input was that of Cockney from South-East England.

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yeah its true a lot of Irish where sent to Australian penal colonies, sure one of the most famous Irish songs (The Fields of Athenry) was all about how the "Crown" sent "Micheal" to "Botany Bay" because he "stole Trevelyn's corn, So the young might see the morn."

Haha what about NZ? Seem like Australians but not as backwards. Looks increasingly like that's the place to go... unless you stop me

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Originally Posted by doctored

Haha what about NZ? Seem like Australians but not as backwards. Looks increasingly like that's the place to go... unless you stop me

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Less backwards?

How so?

from what I hear its harder to get work in NZ and they pay is not as good ie the NZ dollar is not worth as much as the Oz dollar. You should visit NZ, but you can do it all in 6 weeks (i have heard). I was to do NZ while I was in Oz but I had to go home halfway thought my year trip.

I 'took a year' (code for couldn't find a job for a year).

One of my best friends however graduated from Harvard, spent a year in Israel, came back, spent 6 months studying and took the medschool exams and so after the end of two years after earning her undergraduate degree, she's going to be starting at columbia med school in the fall.

It's quite common nowadays (at least in the US), and shouldn't be too disruptive towards career goals. My biggest advice would be to make sure not to lose the spark of whatever it is that you studied and wish to pursue as a career.

I've heard stories from friends who took a year and basically were unable to go back to studying like they wanted or go back to doing whatever it was they originally wanted because they weren't able to pick it back up without school.

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Originally Posted by Kaiser

Less backwards?

How so?

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Sorry came across wrong, I just think the NZers would be a bit more chilled than Aus from what I hear, though they are similar

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Originally Posted by Darksaviour69

from what I hear its harder to get work in NZ and they pay is not as good ie the NZ dollar is not worth as much as the Oz dollar. You should visit NZ, but you can do it all in 6 weeks (i have heard). I was to do NZ while I was in Oz but I had to go home halfway thought my year trip.

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Hmm I'm working pretty hard part time at the moment to raise funds, hopefully will be able to do it without working too much but that's a good point. NZ seems worth it for the money though. Do you know much about Visas and whatnot for NZ?

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Originally Posted by quzar

I 'took a year' (code for couldn't find a job for a year).

One of my best friends however graduated from Harvard, spent a year in Israel, came back, spent 6 months studying and took the medschool exams and so after the end of two years after earning her undergraduate degree, she's going to be starting at columbia med school in the fall.

It's quite common nowadays (at least in the US), and shouldn't be too disruptive towards career goals. My biggest advice would be to make sure not to lose the spark of whatever it is that you studied and wish to pursue as a career.

I've heard stories from friends who took a year and basically were unable to go back to studying like they wanted or go back to doing whatever it was they originally wanted because they weren't able to pick it back up without school.

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This is a good point, I don't see this as being a big issue though. If that happens, it happens! Could just study something else that interests me if it comes to that I guess. What did you do on your year off?

Sorry to flog but would be really keen to hear some more stuffs

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Do you know much about Visas and whatnot for NZ?

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working visas? no, I never looked into it as i was advised against working there if i was also going to aus. But that doesn't mean that people don't work there, I have heard that some do. Its just if you doing both your better of working in aus as there is more work and the money is worth more.

Of course this was before the "recession" things might have changed for the worse or better. I would also say in general i found things more expensive in aus compare to home and when i was in aus it was about 50p =1 dollar, but now its 60p=1 dollar..... which sucks for you.

Btw if your going to Sidney the wake up is a great hostel .


also i would recommend south-east Asia, i did Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, really worth it. But if I was going to do it again I would have done Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Everything is so dirt cheap in those countries (the further south you go the dearer it gets).