In some countries young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing high school and starting university studies.Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decide to do this.

There are many disadvantages and advantages of taking a gap year. Those who favour of taking that year would value personal experiences superior than theoretical knowledge, which might not be possible to acquire from the modern university educational systems. Critics, on the other hand, who against with the taking a time off, might value more with financial terms than personal experiences.

To begin with, the students who take a year off between the end of the high school and before entering the higher education would face the opportunities of getting the practical experiences. Even though those who might not attend the university to find the position instead, they could get the appropriate experiences that might be valuable in the future. Furthermore, those practical experiences could not be obtained or could be learned from the modern educational systems as those practical experiences are not only involving with effective communication and socialising skills. For example of those practical experiences, students might learn social interactions and effective communication skills. Learning being independent, responsibilities and found their identities for the career path in the future would be the results of having a gap year.

On the other hand, students who continued with their studies and graduated from the higher education earlier, they could work and start to earn a higher salary. As a result of this, they could financially stable and can start the family earlier than those of take a year off. Even though, those students could be stable with their financial status but they will lose the opportunities of getting the practical experiences especially communication skills. For example, people who took a break in their life to learn the way to emerging with other people will be a better society member than those who chose not to take a break. Therefore, continuous studying students are high likely not known of their career paths compared to those who chose to work or travel.

After weighing both sides of the question, I gave my vote emphatically for the prior options with the taking a break with the studies, which is strong enough to warrant a revival of the pros and cons.