Reader Comments
University introduces gap-year plan for new admits
Published: Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Seeking to bolster international opportunities for students, the University will announce a “bridge year” program today that would allow incoming freshmen to defer matriculation and spend a year doing community service in a foreign country.
The program, which will ...(back to the article)
The opinions expressed here are those of the individual commenters and do not necessarily represent the views of The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc. We do not take responsibility for the opinions, facts, or claims presented by individual commenters, and reserve the right to moderate or delete inappropriate comments.
I think this idea would be great the end of the princeton career, rather than at the beginning. Students are much more mature and capable, intellectually and socially, to take advantage of the experience after having already gone through the princeton. I know I would certainly consider such a program.
Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!
The gap year is a good idea but, as others have mentioned, I'd be worried about overstructuring the experience. The term "community service" also lights up my Political Correctness radar. It will be interesting to see whether the "approved" list of community service organizations includes those whose notions of service don't hew to the left/liberal ideology endemic among the professoriate at Princeton and other Ivy League schools.
Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!
I also had a gap year before coming here this last fall, and I'd be wary of anything too structured. Certainly not any kind of orientation - having to fend for oneself is one of the most important parts of the experience. But financial support for participation in approved programs or, perhaps more significantly, for an independently designed plan of travel/study/service/internship for the year would be a tremendous instance of leadership on the part of Princeton. I learned far more in the gap year than any other year in school. Opening that experience to incoming students regardless of financial situation, and providing administrative and program support would be beyond fantastic.
Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!
Evidently a little before my time with the gap year/year off plan, I somehow managed to take not one, but two years away from Princeton. I spent the first in England on an English-Speaking Union exchange. The second year (between junior and senior years) I left to help build a 50 foot ketch and sail it between Maine and Guatemala and back again. The issue of being out-of-synch with one's original classmates is an opportunity cost, but in each year, the rewards of the experience vastly offset the minuses, rendering my decision brilliant. The second year away also served to make me focus on my thesis and senior year academics when I returned and in a way that I had not done before. For instance, in my first three years, I had been on Princeton's varsity crews, and for the final year, things and people had changed enough that I called it quits. That was a "cost" but, much as I loved it, crew was not the primary reason that I came to Princeton, and it was great to have the perspective gained; no way would I have had it without the growth away from undergraduate life in the Ivy League.
Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!
Having taken a year off myself, I highly recommend it and applaud the initiative. I worry that it might formulate the year-off too much, reducing exposure to the "real world," but if done right, it could be AWESOME. I wonder if there will be any possibility of students attending only half or part of the year and doing their own thing for the rest of the time?
Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!
Great idea, although ambitious students have already been doing this for years, and not just for community service. Community service is great, but why limit it to community service? I guess if enough people started doing it it could turn into a year-long orientation-type thing. A year-long OA?
Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!