Student Travel Question: Should You Stay or Should You Go?

When David Evans graduated from high school, he was unsure of his university study plans.

So he decided to take a year off from school, worked in the restaurant industry for about seven months and then traveled around Europe. He is now a University of British Columbia psychology student, with plans to teach at the college or university level, and credits the time off for helping him determine his path.

"It opened my eyes and let me discover what I wanted to do at university," he says. "Coming right out of high school, I wasn't too certain. But meeting a lot of people on your travels helped you sculpt yourself."

The 21-year-old New Westminster, B.C., native, is not alone. Many students now find themselves at the crossroads of their academic careers. They are all asking themselves the same question: Should I stay at school or should I take time off and see the world?

Evans says go – just for the life experience. The "third-and-a-half-year" student, has more plans to travel before he begins grad school, and is not worried about how employers might react to his late entry to the workforce.

Some students travel right after high school

"I'm in no rush to graduate, to be honest," he says. "I'm learning a lot in here and I'm liking it a lot. "The economy, it's kind of scary right now, but I'm okay with being a student. That said, there is the rush to get into the career and start building your empire. But, myself, I'm happy with the route I'm taking."

He and others say the time you go – right after high school or midway through university or college – depends on your personal situation and career goals. But whenever you go, the decision is worthwhile.

Jane Gray, advising co-ordinator in the school of business at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, which has four campuses across Metro Vancouver, says time off to travel and work helps students determine what they want to study – and they become better students. The decision to work or travel often results after students start in one program but quit because they didn't struggled academically or changed their plans.

Many students, she says, come to university just because their parents tell them to. But plans often don't go awry and students drop out. When students come back, the students are more motivated because their reasons for being there are more personal.

Are you at school for the right reasons?

"It's important for students to be at school for the right reasons and not because someone is telling them to," says Gray.

She is "a big proponent of taking time off" from school to travel and work. But, as a mother of three adult-age children, she also recognizes that parents deserve to have input.

"If I meet with parents in an advising appointment with their sons and daughters, I try to walk that line between honouring what the parents want for their children, because that is my right as a parent, to want certain things for my kids, but I also want the parents to listen to their children – because I see it all the time: If the child isn't on board with the parents' dreams and wishes, sometimes they crash and burn."

She says her 20-year-old son would have crashed and burned if she and her husband did not allow him to take time off after high school. Meanwhile, her 23-year-old daughter, a psychology student at Kwantlen, gained valuable independence while traveling to Australia and Rwanda in summer months and staying on schedule academically.

Travel, says Gray, helps students develop "softer" social skills that can't be taught in a book. The international and cross-cultural experiences also help students handle difficult "real-life" situations when they do begin their careers.

"Parents might kill me for saying this, but I would rather see a student who's a solid B with all of that in their background – the traveling and response to different cultures and those types of experiences – versus a straight-A or A-plus student who never experienced any of that."

New era: younger students taking longer

In this era of aging baby boomers and a shrinking labour pool, Canadian employers also have to be prepared to accommodate younger students who take longer to complete their degrees. But many companies are using creative ways to retain talent. Gray notes several Kwantlen business students are "sponsored" by employers who allowed them to reduce their work schedules and/or cover some of tuition costs.

"I'm in my early 50s. In my day, when I went to university, the norm was to get straight out of high school," says Gray. "You went straight to university. You blazed through it in three or four years and you got a job. I can't tell you what the stats are, but it sure seems that the students that I see are no longer taking that path.

"I see a lot of students who are working full-time and putting themselves through their degree by just taking a couple of courses every semester. It might take them six, seven, or eight years to get their degree just because they're pecking away at it more slowly."
Emelie Peacock, 24, is someone who is taking the slower route.

Peacock, a fourth-year UBC international relations major began her program two years later than many others, after changing her original plans. The Stockholm native dropped out of university in her native Sweden and then spent four months in Spain and "worked a bunch" back at her family's restaurant in Sweden.

She says the travel time reinforced her decision to study international relations and motivated her to become a better student as she pursues a possible career at the United Nations.

"For myself, I need to go out and work and see the world to realize that I want to go to school, because school is this hard thing that you really have to focus on and be dedicated to," says Peacock. "Working at a crappy job for a while is a really good way to understand that you want to go to school."

There can be consequences to putting off school

She isn't concerned about entering the workforce later than her peers. She advises other students to take at least one "gap year" if they are not sure about their study plans.
However, Nara Afonso, entering the fourth and final year of her math degree at UBC, is not in favour of taking time from study to travel. The 21-year-old Burnaby, B.C., native proceeded straight to university from high school and plans to head right to graduate school in 2012-13 as she strives to become a math professor.

"It's easier to get it all done with than to take time off," says Afonso, 21.

She says friends who took time off are now suffering the consequences.

"Just now they're deciding that they should be in school, but they're having a hard time getting back into it," says Afonso. "They don't know what they want to do, mostly, or how to go about doing it."

She based her study path on the ones of her three older brothers. They all went to university right after high school. The oldest one is now a photographer in New York, the middle one is a history professor at York University and the other one is a lawyer.

Afonso still finds time to travel, but she takes her trips in summer months between semesters without disrupting the study. She just returned from a trip to Montreal, New York and California, and also works part-time in "website maintenance."

Pick a pace that works best for you

What's her advice to other students who are try to decide whether to take time off to travel or go full-speed ahead at university?

"I would just say: Keep going. Suck it up for a few years. Get that degree and then, after, take time off," says Afonso.

But, ultimately, say Afonso, Evans, advisor Gray and Peacock, you must choose what works best for you – regardless of what others do.

"If you know what you want to do, then go ahead and do it," says Afonso. "If you need to take time to figure things out, then that's fine, too."