6 Reasons to Consider a Gap Year After College
On average, it takes one to five years or more for a Kenyan graduate to get employed, let alone settle in a job. Many corporates have now introduced yearlong graduate internships in an effort to transition graduates from college to the job market. For Christians interested in furthering their exposure to Gospel work, there are Christian organizations offering gap years as well. Here is why you should consider joining a gap-year program after college:
Experiencing Different Cultures
With postings to cross-cultural areas for service, a gap year offers a graduate an opportunity to explore different cultures. It is common for stereotypes to form when you spend a lifetime with people of your tribe. However, with greater exposure, a gap year will have you not only challenging stereotypes but also growing in tolerance and empathy when relating to people. You also get to discover and appreciate diverse approaches to life.
Learning Organizational Skills
Many graduates leaving college barely have work-environment-gathered organizational skills. A gap year provides the chance to grow these skills hands-on. Organizational skills include interpersonal skills, punctuality, setting goals, prioritizing goals, and setting up systems to accomplish the goals. The environment of a gap year allows you to make mistakes and correct them in a safe space—mistakes that would otherwise compromise your appraisal if you were a full-time employee. In a nutshell, you get to grow personally and professionally.
Growing Networks and Widening Your Social Circle
As you find your niche in life, a gap year allows you to cast your net wider and make new associations. These networks help you build up your character and reputation. Once done with college, social networks formed at the workplace during a gap year are the steppingstones to your corporate growth. They help you access career opportunities and job connections in the future.
Identifying Mentors and Trailblazers
Every graduate desires to have a mentor to help them as they transition into the corporate world. Joining a gap year program introduces you to trailblazers in your field who will mentor you—people you would otherwise find hard to locate. These people, by virtue of sharing a working space with you, will accord you a natural environment to learn and grow in competency, as well as anticipate growth opportunities in the future.
Enables a Smooth Transition into a Full-term Vocation
Many fresh graduates imagine life after campus as bliss with freedom from lectures and exams. Until they find bills, taxes, responsibilities, deliverables at work, and other realities of life that college cushioned them from. Joining a gap-year program helps smooth your transition. As a volunteer, some of the obligations will not be as hefty as they would be for a full-term employee. This means that the period in the gap year will open your eyes to the realities of life, and you will be better informed to make your life plans.
Leveraging on Lifelong Plans
By the time you get out of college, you are probably of age to start a family. Gap-year opportunities allow you to leverage such milestones in life more flexibly than a full-term employee. It may also be a budding time for ideas on personal and career growth that are more reliable because you will have real experience on the job.
If you are a Christian keen on growing in the Gospel and in Gospel work through training and mentorship, iServe Africa is your go-to place. It is an organization in Kenya that offers gap year opportunities to fresh graduates. For one year after campus, you will receive intense training on the Gospel and its effect on work as you get hands-on experience in a Christian partner organization with the skills learned at college or elsewhere. Click here to learn how to apply.
Article By Mary Njeri, Apprentice 2014-2015
Read her blogs here: hopeforchristianmums.com