Students evaluate gap-year program

Though the University announced the proposal of an international gap-year program for incoming freshmen on Feb. 19, the concept of taking a year off before college to pursue personal development abroad is certainly not new.

Several current students who delayed matriculation at Princeton praised the new program, which is intended to promote international community service and offers need-blind financial aid, but some said they probably would have not taken advantage of the program had it existed when they were incoming freshmen.

What dissuades those students from fully endorsing it is the program’s requirement that participants complete some sort of public service project while living in a foreign country, which limits flexibility and could potentially pose logistical hurdles.

Ari Heistein ’11, who spent time teaching, studying and volunteering in Israel during his gap year, said that the University’s promotion of community service is “amazing [and] something Princeton should improve on.” He said, however, that the program imposes limitations on activities while abroad and that he would only have considered it depending on which countries the program would enable him to travel to.

Jackie Thomas ’09, who participated in a secondary scholar exchange program at a boarding school in England for one year, said it is “fantastic that [the program] is community-service based.” She added, though, that it would be “good to extend it to non-community service.”

Others were concerned about the ease of securing long-term community service opportunities abroad, like Talia Nussbaum ’10, who spent her gap year focusing on Judaic studies and service activities in Jerusalem. She said that she does not know if she would want “to do full-time volunteer work” abroad because it is “hard to get community service you can be dedicated to for a year.”

Some students who had taken gap years on their own, though, said the program could be an excellent way for the University to encourage more freshmen to take time off between high school and college by eliminating roadblocks such as financial concerns and family uncertainty.

Elizabeth MacFarlane ’10, who spent a year in Ireland caring for two autistic girls and helping in a household and school, noted that the plan could help students who want to go abroad but whose parents won’t let them.

“[I]f the gap year had a more obvious Princeton bent to it, a seal of approval of sorts, perhaps that could help high school seniors better convince their parents to let them take a year doing other things,” MacFarlane said in an e-mail. “I think a year abroad could also really be of use to students whose parents try to make life decisions for them.”