Why not take a ‘course’ in travel and adventure?

Nine years ago this week I boarded a plane and set off alone across the Atlantic. As my peers took their first tentative steps into the world of higher education, I opted for a different experience, choosing a new home deep in the Amazon jungle. Aged 18 I was young, naive and indecisive about my future. I needed time to think and reflect before diving into university. Over the past few years, social media has introduced us to the supposed ‘gap year generation’ – groups of privileged 18-year-olds who take time out after school to drink and travel. Here in Ireland, taking a break after the Leaving Cert is a foreign concept, something only British students do. This is certainly how I felt when I boarded that flight to Latin America.

Nearly a decade on and Irish gap year students remain relatively rare. Last month, 55,000 students collected their Leaving Cert results and began the next step in their growth and development as educated adults. In Ireland that almost inevitably means going straight back into education. But here we meet some young people who opted for the enriching experience of a gap year.

Kate Adams (19)

From Moira, Co Armagh

Adams needed a break from her studies before going to university. “It was obvious to me and my parents that there was still a lot to be decided,” she explains.

“I had no idea what I wanted to do. The only thing I was set on was that I wanted to leave Ireland.”

She applied to volunteer for a year in Honduras with the Scottish educational charity Project Trust. She spent months raising the necessary funds to teach abroad and in August 2013 travelled to the tiny coffee town of La Unión in central Honduras. Before leaving Armagh, the longest Kate had ever spent away from her family was two weeks.

Teaching in a large bilingual school was a daunting prospect for an 18-year-old. “It was like, oh my God we haven’t taught in our lives, we’re going to go into this huge bilingual school with a country renowned reputation and we’ll be expected to teach.”

However, over time, and with the support of her teaching partner from Wales, she learned to teach children aged 7-13 and helped redesign the English language syllabus in the classroom.

Her family was apprehensive about her living in a country with the highest murder rate in the world.

“Accidents happen everywhere but the experience of being thrown into a culture that’s so completely different from your ordinary life, you adapt quickly to their way of life and become adjusted to looking out for a different set of dangers than you would have at home.”

Adams begins her studies in product design engineering at Loughborough University this month. She says that after her year in Honduras, she is “excited about the next chapter”. “Being put in a situation which is so out of your comfort zone makes you realise how adaptable and resilient you can be. It has given me a faith in myself and my capabilities which, otherwise, I wouldn’t have realised.”

Cathal Thornton (19)

From Drogheda, Co Louth

“For me the idea of taking a gap year began as somewhat of a joke,” he says. “When faced with the dreaded Leaving Cert pressure myself and some friends would say sure what does it matter? I’ll just take a gap year.”

However, after he failed to secure a place to study drama, Thornton began to “seriously consider” taking a break and approached the artistic director of the local youth theatre in Drogheda looking for advice.

“She handed me all these books and essays and plays to read and broaden my view of theatre,” he says. “She was invaluable at recommending shows to see in Dublin and helping me with monologue and portfolio preparation throughout the year.”

He began working as a junior facilitator at Droichead Youth Theatre, while also developing his skills as a stage technician. He acted on stage and travelled to Austria to represent the National Association of Youth Drama. He tried looking for paid work but ended up signing on the dole and living at home.

Thornton is glad he didn’t listen to his guidance counsellor who advised he study English and Drama in Galway. When the time came to audition for drama schools again he felt “much more prepared”.

'This time around I was much more confident. This time I knew 'I've got this; I can do this'." He will begin his degree in Drama and Theatre Studies in Trinity College later this month.

Anna Carthy (18)

From Baltimore, Co

Cork Carthy, who sat her Leaving Cert in June, says she was worried about choosing the wrong college on her CAO form.

“Instead of going into a random course that I’d end up dropping out of, I decided I’d take the year to decide properly,” she says. “I need to take a break after six years of studying.”

Her parents agreed it was time to "take a break" and "grow up a bit on my own". They've arranged for her to travel to Switzerland and spend the winter living with her cousins in the town of Winterthur. She has secured a job in one of the city's Irish pubs and has deferred her place to study European Studies at the University of Limerick.

Carthy always planned on taking a gap year but she is starting to feel uneasy about leaving all her friends behind.

“I’m nervous, even dreading going at the moment because I know how much I’m going to miss everyone. But it’s a whole new year and I’m excited [about] the adventure.”

Tasmin Kerr (18)

From Co Down

Kerr has also set off on a gap year this month. She says her mother was the "driving force", giving her the support and strength to travel to Jiangxi province in China. Back at school in Co Down there was an expectation that students would go directly into third-level.

“The careers teachers in my school are very much university focused and were saying everyone should go do medicine, dentistry, things like that.”

Friends of hers were sceptical of her gap year plans because of the “typical gap year image of going around the world to drink basically”.

Kerr will teach English to teenagers in a school in the city of Jiu Jang. She hopes to be “pretty good” at Mandarin by the end of her 12 months abroad and is considering studying the language at university.

“Maybe I’ll love teaching and become a teacher. You never know.”

Betty McLaughlin

Guidance counsellor

McLaughlin, president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, says students need a passion for their third-level studies.

“If the choices you’re making going into college aren’t based on any real passion, they don’t excite you, a gap year might be the right thing.”

The “interpersonal and life skills” one develops during a gap year create a more “positive and mature” university student, she says, adding that students who want to defer their course offer should contact college administration and ask them to hold the place. “You’ll have a guaranteed place in writing irrespective of if the points go up or down.

“If you have a well-worked plan it could be the most valuable year of your life.”