A gap year is a year between leaving school and starting university that is usually spent traveling or working. Gap years have long been popular in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. A gap year provides the opportunity for you to develop valuable skills that can't be learned in the classroom. High school students or university graduates who need a relaxed time after stressful academic years or before working will take a gap year.
In the past few days, following a movie, the word gap year has gone viral on the internet through social media and email, attracting a large number of young people who share pictures of their holidays.
A trip to Pattaya city of Thailand as a destination for her gap year, 26 year old Nguyen Tran Hanh My, a sales employee in HCMC’s Binh Thanh District revealed that after graduating from university until now, she has not dared to travel on my own but trips organized by the company to save money. She added that she has also jumped from the old company to the present company with the expectation to find a better job adding that she now needs a break after a long day of work. In the short term, her savings are enough for me to travel to a few places. After that, she will consider working or learning one more job.
A career break, also sometimes called a sabbatical, is an increasingly popular option with people part-way through their working life. After two years of working under high pressure, a 24 year old advertising employee, Hoang Trung, in HCMC’s Go Vap District resigned from his job as a career break. However, after less than four months off, Trung hurriedly looked for a job again as he said that after traveling a few times, he got bored.
Besides, all his friends had to work, so no one had free time to hang out with him. But most importantly, his savings are not much left. Worse, his family needed a lot of money to solve a problem at the same time; consequently, he had to borrow some money from friends to manage it. He moaned that he had just been off for less than 4 months but he had to learn a lot of things when he came back to work.
To start growing vegetables and gardening as a gap year after working one year, but experiencing the life of a farmer for a few days, Tran Thanh Minh Tong in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City had to spend more money on medicine to treat shoulder pain, plasters, and massage oil. Minh Tong said that his family also has a small garden in the countryside. he took a gap year to go back to the countryside as a career break.
But after a few days of digging the soil, he was experiencing pain, because he had been used to doing office work and computers; therefore, he had to spend a lot of money on pills and patches. After nearly half a year, he still hasn't gotten used to farmers’ work. After taking more than half a year off, he felt like someone who had just graduated from school and found everything new because he works for a programming company so staff have to update their knowledge every day.
A gap year for some young people is not only a period of rest, it is also a time to learn new expertise benefitting future work. Taking a gap year, Dinh Thi Thu Trang, a 29 year old interior architect in District 8 of Ho Chi Minh City, continued her busy schedule with courses on film editing techniques and writing content. Thu Trang shared that because she was quite frustrated with her current job, she had to learn a side job. One day, she takes two parallel classes from noon to evening, only taking a break on weekends.
In the cycle of modern life with invisible pressure from many sides, a break to balance work, study and life is necessary. The length of a gap year depends on each person's circumstances and goals. However, when making decisions, young people need to consider the advantages and disadvantages of this.
