Taking the Gap

I choked on my litchi juice the other day. I had just popped the litchi into my mouth when someone asked my daughter where she was thinking of going to university and whether she would be staying at home. Cape Town university is a hop and a skip away. She very quickly replied that she was definitely not staying at home. I have been saying for a while now that she is going to be flying the nest soon - what with Canadian exchange and service projects in Thailand, it comes as no surprise. So I don't think that's what made me choke!

I cannot believe that this is her last year at school, though. And the question of a gap year vs going straight to university has been debated in our house for a little while. It is a hot topic. Many people are against their children taking a year off as they think that it is a waste of time and money and that they will find it hard to settle back at university afterwards. They think that it is best that they continue straight on while they are still in the head-space for learning.

We are quite open to this idea but not as a year off to waitress for peanuts in some little known English pub. A year off doing something worthwhile (like building water tanks in a Thai village) or doing a short course and some travelling sounds like a worthwhile experience. A friend's son is spending time in Italy doing an art course before he comes home to study architecture. Someone else I know spent time at a school in the Loire valley in France, having studied French at school.

I think that if you are unsure what to study after school, it makes sense to take a break rather than rushing into a course that you later find out to be the wrong one after you have spent money and time on it. Certainly I wish that I had had that opportunity. Not that I regret studying what I did. But I was young, university was a huge cultural shock in the apartheid era, and I found it difficult to settle in to the structure straight away. There were a few students who had travelled overseas for a year, and you could see the difference that made to their attitude towards studying and the maturity with which they handled university. 

So, like I say we are open to the idea. But I hope she won't be like the Greek woman I met a while ago. She is married to a South African and has settled here now with two small children. They met in the UK when they were both students. They both did post-graduate studies and then married. She was 17 when she left Greece to study .....and now get this.....she never actually went home to live again. I am not sure how I feel about my daughter leaving......forever.