maaat said:
i was just wondering what peoples ideas about having a year of before going to uni were. i'm thinking about working six months and travelling six months. i'm not sure though. i don't know whether i will be motivated enough in a years time to go back. or whether it is a good thing to do or not.
thanks.
One of my friends from uni just left to go to Canada. He was doing Economic and Social Sciences in the first semester, took the 2nd semester off, and next year he's transferring to COFA to do Design (he pretty much came to Sydney Uni just to get politics out of his system)
I personally worked and travelled as well, but I squashed this all into the 4 months after the HSC, and trust me, it was really hard to come back home and get stuck into uni. That said, I have no regrets, uni was a welcome change, and it's pretty relaxed too in terms of workload, nothing like Year 12 (unless you do science or engineering).
Moral of the story is, a year is a lot of time, there are other options such as the half gap year, and whether you take a gap year or not, either way the whole year will be a different, laidback experience. . The four months after the HSC is actually really long time, some people eve find themselves longing for uni to start for want of something to do. But at the end of the day, it comes down to the person, and what you wanna get out of a year off.
Some people who were considering a gap year but went straight to uni/tafe didn't regret it at all, because tertiary study was the change they needed. Others regret not taking some time off. In all seriousness, uni is a bit of a cinch (unless you're doing science, engineering, or even commerce).