if it is anyone heard of a college counselor helping kids figure out the college process helping you figure out the gap year process it's one of a challenging it can be overwhelming and it's nice to have someone to refer to to help you through process feel like i'm half done and my second son who's my oldest son is in junior college and my second son is currently taking a gap year so he's thriving it's been the best choice for him and it's been really exciting to understand how he's grown in the first six months and where he's going to the next six months so that's sort of enough about me so let's talk about you guys this is probably my favorite  ety five percent of the graduates grammar of the college and that's a great thing but for some kids they burn out and other kids they thrive so you just have to understand where you fit in th s department of education has said for some students getting out of college can be just as challenging and what that means really is you know we work so hard with our students to make sure to choose the right  shocker and the average graduation rate so what's happening to kids are getting washed out you know many things and it's taken them a long time to get through college and when you're paying the bill with a lot of money of this is a this is nationwide i don't and the interesting part of all gone one high is that we're just starting to collect data and gawkers right now there's just not a lot of data an example of that would be i asked the kinds counselor mature they're actually making better decisions they've actually lived in the real reason to communicate better with people you know one of his students and talk to part of his doctor who's going to drive across country because buddy well guess what his car broke so that's not going to work out so well and so he had to figure it out figured out how to get the car back how to sell the car he couldn't afford to get a new car so it's got your claim and actually to me that's like real world learning the other thing that i think this is another benefit is actually getting out of the belmont bubble i know my son moment just want to get out of the drama problem and you go to college it's kind of a college bubble a little bit for taking that year or semester off in between so he's currently working in a restaurant so he's brushing up on spanish he's meeting people that are a little bit older that actually have rolled real world learning experiences and you know he's deciding that for him maybe he wants to run a restaurant someday he probably doesn't want to work in a restaurant and it's footing the bill right now but i think he's made that as a social life a little bit i also think for him he has been able to spend over more time alone i've been encourage journal which i think is very important to get here just a journal and every so often to understand what's going on and have these kids really think because when you're in high school going out drinking too much about right and then you go to college so it's just i think three areas on the first one is budget which is very important and the student is working so a lot of students now regard many students are actually finding their own gap years so they're working and then they're going to pay for their their whether they're going to travel so there's lots of different ways to  so the best way to really gear up our gap here is to come in two or three different chunks it's almost like summer to college so you have semesters in college so you have your first semester of a gap year maybe you work or you go to a program or you have an by by june of that when you're if you want to go away and fall to get the program that you want to go on and i suggest that you start your gawker in september so a lot of your friends are up to college and you're starting your gap year so you'll feel like you're missing out on something you and this is a really good time to research so there's a ton of research you can go you can google you happier and you're going to be overwhelmed with a lot there was a gap year fair last night in brookline there's two theories coming up if you're interested in this know three years ago barely anyone took a gap year last year there was about ten to fifteen this year there's probably twenty to twenty five every year the kids are talking miss going to college and you know traveling was just a bummer i'm just and what i do here is the regrets from a parent or from a student that says i wish so don't don't have those regrets so now that you're sort of more aware of the idea of a gap year you will and i have a couple of quotes from so parents i wish my son had taken a gap year it is october and he's already back home school is too much thriving in college and when she went she was ready and excited so this is real i know my son needed to get here but we had no idea how to go about it there were so many choices and decisions to make he struggled her freshman year in college i didn't feel good about himself and his grades up and it was a waste  so not having regrets i think and knowing that when we invest in college for our kids we're investing a lot of money so i guess my call to you is just make sure that you're making the investment the right time and having parents get on board with the students and students getting on board the parents is really key and really important to make this is to make a successful and have your kids thrive when they do go to college lizzie jacki and abbi if you want to come take the stand over here decide who wants to go first i'll go first i'm lizzie to demand i graduated from here in twenty fourteen i'm currently a student at u mass amherst i'm a sophomore  college just didn't feel like it was right for me so i got accepted to school like she was saying and then i just defer to year and then that summer after i was working at a camp and then  september i went on outward bound program trip it was a semester long trip those seventy two days total and it consisted of hiking backpacking canoeing so this was like an adventure type trip and i got to go to north carolina florida and patagonia in argentina and it was a great experience it definitely put me out of my comfort zone but i really wanted to have an experience like nothing like i had before like like i want to get out of the belmont bubble i just want to go do something that i've never done before and still i'm very happy that i did that even if it was like tough at times i'm very happy that i did that and then i came back and for those few weeks i got back like on thanksgiving day so the about two weeks after that i was just like kind of relaxing but then when my friends who i also took a gap year with we started doing an internship medical center and one of their office units and so we'd go in a few days a week just during the day helping out with office stuff organizing putting data in stuff like that and then in the january of my gap year i applied to be a lifeguard at the waltham y m c a and i just started working there so as like she was saying i was just working a job getting a lot of money going into the  internship a few days a week when i didn't have to work and my friend actually went wolfing which shoes document with the farming it's a way that you can travel the world for cheap in stay at places and just work for them  jealous of her doing that but it's also some of those plane tickets can be expensive so i was working and then i wanted to visit family throughout the states that i haven't really visited before so  i chose to visit family in michigan texas and montana in michigan i stayed with my on who's an e r doctor and i'm interested in the field of medicine so i shadowed her for a week just like at the hospital walking around seeing what i was actually like and i was a very cool experience and then i was back home working more and then i went to texas where i stayed with a family friend who owns her own aquatic fitness facility and i love swimming and so it's really cool seeing how she went about like teaching people how to swim and her methods and just like seeing texas it's never been there and then right from there i went up to montana and stayed with another cousin who has a horse farm there so i was out in the western like the middle of nowhere just surrounded by land and i got lake ride and just see there i'd never been that far west in the states so those are very cool to be able to do and i came home and i just continued working got a bunch of money which helped with college i'm jack i was class of twenty fifteen i'm a freshman at harvard now i've so i always knew i wanted to take a gap year my sister took one while i was a freshman in high school so i overstress young fourteen year olds all my sister doing all these abroad programs and i said i want this to be me so all throughout high school that was always the plan so i started the gap here thinking that i was just going to do a bunch of interned ships  doing software engineering probably in the boston area maybe out west and so i did that first summer work at a software company in arlington and i realized maybe that wouldn't be the best way of spending my time so i finished that out and i did another internship in kendall square in the fall so that was from september to about december and all that time i was planning some abroad trips so i finished that out  of the month of january to myself and so i ended up taking driver's ed some do that in high school and for the entire month of february i was in new zealand in fiji doing a torrid did a lot of high adventure activities diving bungee jumping and whatnot so that was a lot of fun i got back and i spent about a week in indianapolis i was volunteering at a music convention over there so that was pretty fun they paid for airfare and everything and april i took off worked on some programming projects on the side launched an app developed a website redid my own personal website and in may i actually started another internship softer internship figured i needed some money and finally after that i went to thailand for a month from june to july so we went in a circle around thailand and that was a ton of fun we got to see all the culture we went off the beaten path learn some of the language and i got back from that and just sort of took it easy for school and got to read a lot and throughout the year i was staying with friends for some weekends at college because all of my friends were freshman caught up on the news a ton read a lot of good books did get to watch some t v so it was i definitely found time for leisure and i was able to socialise a lot more than i thought i would so that's definitely something to take into i keep on saying i just graduated from high of about thirty confusing people like january so i graduated like this past year in may and so i'm halfway through a gap year now and i got back about like a month ago from a semester program in nepal so that was from around september to december it was the same company that malia obama did but not the same issues i got mad about it  and then i will serve in chilling out at home oh my friends are home from break and next actually this coming monday i have my first day at an internship with a senator and really excited about it i think that this is most important time for sure in my life to start getting involved as a young person another body to what i believe to be very important work and i actually really intentionally l feel that you got here if you yeah i mean it just the biggest thing for me was just discovering all of these sides of myself that i really didn't know i was very different person in high school i just i thought i was going to go just get a job at like google and just work at a specified off direction here for the rest of my life and looking back i can't believe that i thought that and just taking the gap here seeing how the world actually works definitely helps me arrive at just more closer to who i really and it helped me sort of come out of my shell socially i got to read a lot got to explore some other interests and so it was definitely definitely good for that for me it helped me like get a real world experience and like what it's actually like but also having more time to myself what help it helped me mature i always felt like i was i just felt like i was sometimes more mature than other people to begin with but  it helped me and then just like learning how to be independent and do things for myself like figure out what i want to do and like actually like put that into action this or my gap year helped me a lot with that  i'm sure you've got something oh yeah i mean i think that the reason why i took a gap year was sort of because i don't know not to like to my own horn but like i was i was good at high school you know i had a really good group of friends i got really good grades i was r c after we and i wasn't happy like i wasn't depressed but i i wasn't happy i wasn't really doing that much for me i was like super excited about everything in my life all the time i would like wake up  whole idea of your parents and go how they want to know i mean i my parents are super great about it i definitely i like had a couple of big sit down conversations about budget with them i think that's a really important thing to were all on board with it i will say for some of the international trips it took some convincing especially because thailand is pretty dangerous and i did end up getting some diseases over there  they in the end of vendors they were very supportive i just i had to talk through some of the international options with my parents are also very supportive they encouraged and they suggested it they how do you think it's changed you starting college you know there was a question about story later color so i like your just two things if you can first of all i'm going to college did you feel like you were too old or did you feel awkward going in and once you've been there you feel and i kind of like i would like to look down at the like freshman even though i was a freshman be like oh they're so young and immature like i was only a year older but yeah i was it was like hard and weird at first since all my friends were like are high school friends where sophomores and they had already all done this like so the first few weeks before i made like an actual like real first friend were challenging but then like after i made that friend like just more friends happened and the like also helped me like i'm friends with people that i really like and we really get along with and they're also like me and so that's very important to me rather than like rushing into friendships just because you want friends  and then the gap you're really like in in force like i wanted to go to college like i wanted to do this i wanted to like learn and see what i could do yeah there's just there's a lot in college that you pick up the first year the first semester and i felt like i definitely picked that up on the get here so that i could come in and i was just a lot more socially prepared and i also knew a lot more people taking a gap year because my friends started school so i could be with them and then i met some people who were going to school with me on the gap year as well but i definitely felt like i was more mature and a lot more prepared for some of the stresses of just living with people taking a lot more challenging courses that sarah back to your question of social you guys before like going off to college because both my ceilings are younger so it gave me more time to be with them but then also like at work and through like the internship that i did i was able to talk to people like people who are in the real world like adults and the last job i worked at i was with people my own age but after working long days there it was nice to just feel like come home and relax like i didn't feel a need to be super social all the time like i could still talk to my friends like call them or text them so that's fine with me and then being able to see them on breaks but i like having a chance to do things for myself and like meet new people yeah it was during  weeknights i would usually be sitting at my house alone because all of my friends are in school on weekends i did have a lot of friends in the boston area so i would usually go out stay with maybe stay the night or stay the weekend  i messaged my friends pretty consistently just through group chats and whatnot and i mean just working in turn ships with people for eight hours a day was still pretty social so yeah i agree it was nice to are you know taking a semester off they're already in college or like it's in the sheen college and grad school so i'm definitely going to be one of the younger people there but i also think like something that's really important to learn from a gap year is the ability to be alone like i think that that's something you don't really learn in high school there's always that really big pressure to like have best friends and be the coolest person there but i think just taking a gap year and being ok with just being by yourself and like hanging out with yourself i think that's a really important skill a lot of kids today don't really get but again the great thing about ohio is a lot of kids go to school like us and harvest in tough and new so i have a bunch i'm not too worried about like  isn't for me personally i came out of high school and i really want to be a doctor i come from a big family of actually army doctors i didn't want to be an army doctor but i want to be a doctor and i i'm not who knows who knows any more but i do something that i really have come to appreciate on this year is like our freedom of speech i spent a semester in a country where that isn't necessarily a right given to you and with the past election not to assume and not to bring politics into it but as a young person who has a lot of values that are really important to me i was often amazed by how much misinformation th was on the internet so journalism and political journalism are things that i've been watching my radar recently and it's not to say that i never want to be a doctor anymore but i definitely think it's a really good idea to not go into college with like one singular idea of what you want to do just because i don't i don't really think that that's the point of college i think because you have a lot throughout your whole life and not necessarily did you one exact thing granted i'm going to a very liberal arts college so yeah just building off of that in high school i mean you're you wake up every day you take essential you the same courses upper year and you have you you leave with just such a narrow view of what you think you're good at what you think you want to do and that comes from just not having the opportunity to go on all of these varied experiences right and so on the gap year you get out into the world and you can essentially do whatever you want and craft it the way you wanted to and from going out and seeing what it's really like that definitely helps you just discover what you really want to do and for me it actually it really broadened my focus especially in college so i ended up taking first semester just vastly different courses from what i thought i would take because i discovered that i was interested in a lot more things than i thought i would  be for me like my gap year like what gave me more time to think about like what i actually want to do what are my interests and i've always been interested in the medical field just like being able to help people  but then during going into college i was undecided i didn't really know what i want to do is thinking maybe public health or just like something with science and then by my second semester freshman year i decided to be a nutrition major because it has like the courses that it has are classes that i like want to take i'm actually interested in and i'm thinking of being a which is a physician's assistant and they me for that so i can kind of narrowing down more but i'm not like closing off all of their options yet but yeah going in undecided was definitely a good idea because then that will for me my parents like helped me out a lot with like planning stuff because figuring that all out by myself would just be challenging and like it was nice having their support and actually helped me figure that all out and like helping me like come up with different ideas of like different things like i could do and in terms of money like the big cost was like the initial trip that i went on and then i was able to work the rest of the year and then i got a bunch of money is so it wasn't just like i was like i'm using like a whole bunch of money i think it's good to personally i like getting to work during my gap year so there's like a fun and then like money part and i think that's that was personally important for me as for just how to plan out the gap year people who aren't as self directed like you are saying i mean i came in like i said thinking that i was just going to work the whole year and so i i really don't think it's necessary to have just a concrete plan i mean it's great it's you don't stress out over it if you do but it's you should start the year just doing something and see where that takes you see what you like and then go from there because the you'll probably have if you go in thinking the chill do one thing again and leave high school being relatively narrow in focus and so i think that it is it is limiting to plan out like that expenses my parents covered just the airfare and the costs of the trips that i went on and everything else food and whatnot i was on my own which did incentivize going work and making  internet i mean in software everyone is looking for just people who can write code so you really don't need to know anyone coming in but for other things other domains i mean i know with political internships if you talk to just a local senator congressman or whatever you can probably find something i imagine that those people would need some sort of help and then there are also just medical center so we're just working in her office unit doing the just like organization and stuff for them so like i had that connection through that and then the job that i worked i had my life standard email down i'm like save in the notes on your computer being like this is this is what i'm interested in like i would love your ideas if you'd like even just like a short list of any organizations you know are they given or tips to people without college i even some colleges will read over things like cover letters and resumes because they want to see you succeed as well and also just to add on to that ice sort of played up the fact that i was taking you got here when i was applying to these internships because a lot of companies are sort of intrigued by that because they figure that you will bring a unique perspective to the  or volunteer and so i just like i searched gap year found like the different programs and i kind of like went shopping for a program so try to find like the trip that sounded interesting like the best bang for buck basically like i don't want to do something super expensive but also gentle and do something super cheap that i have like no interest in it all so like that shopping around kind of how to me like piece together like oh i want like a semester long and some parents as well when you think about a college come sir they're sort of helping you figure out what college you want is really no different than a gap year you're going to make the investment of a gap year and hold off in college i think you know when i know that the better programs advisors kno programs i've talked to many many kids that have done certain programs so i can help them figure out well i would stay away from this program working with budget and also understand who this kid is having a kid talk to not their parents and really having no plan i think is pretty challenging but i also believe the plan evolves so i think having someone who's who can knows about programs and ideas is very helpful because it's very overwhelming just sort of go there and say oh my gosh what can i do because you could do anything and i think that's why a lot of kids don't take out of yours because it's just too hard to figure out this is you hard to figure out but i think we're going to try to soak up here is becoming an industry now office has been so appreciative of any help that i can give them which is why i'm happy that the p t o had me speak tonight because it is i am excited and i have invested so much time and energy learning about with a child also taken a gap year and gone through high through college process twice i have a lot of information they don't have the time to what program should i suggest for this kid now that there's just not a lot of time so i think we're going to see in the future more whether it's as if advisors being in the local schools or if they have time to be trained getting trained