Latest / Stuff You Should Know / What's a gap year anyway?

Transcript

What's a gap year anyway? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, San Francisco, Hey Seattle, Come see us because we're
0:03
Speaker 1: gonna be there January, and that's right, we're going backwards
0:08
Speaker 1: in time. Will be at the More on the sixteenth
0:10
Speaker 1: in Seattle. Will be at the Castro on the eighteenth
0:12
Speaker 1: in San Francisco as part of Sketch Fest. And as always,
0:15
Speaker 1: you can check out ticket links and get all the
0:17
Speaker 1: info you need at our touring home on the web
0:20
Speaker 1: thanks to squarespace at s y s K live dot com.
0:25
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
0:28
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:37
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry
0:40
Speaker 1: over there. Me so free since, which is not true
0:44
Speaker 1: at all, but it does rhyme, so it's catchy. She's
0:48
Speaker 1: it could be maybe me so three since three o'clock
0:51
Speaker 1: yesterday afternoon. Maybe No, that doesn't count because she's still
0:55
Speaker 1: got a little hunk in her teeth. Oh god, so
0:59
Speaker 1: um Chuck. Yes, we are gathered here today to discuss
1:05
Speaker 1: probably the most important topic we've ever covered, the most
1:09
Speaker 1: hard hitting, timely topic that we've ever taken on. And
1:13
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not sure if we're up to the task,
1:15
Speaker 1: but we're going to give it a try. And what
1:17
Speaker 1: we're talking about today our gap years. Yeah. Did this
1:21
Speaker 1: remind you to the old days of stuff you should know? Yeah,
1:25
Speaker 1: a little bit, hopefully not the new current days of
1:29
Speaker 1: stuff you should know when the occasional topic would come along,
1:32
Speaker 1: that's uh slight and we and we do it anyway, Yeah,
1:36
Speaker 1: because as everyone knows, but we haven't said it for
1:39
Speaker 1: a while, we are dedicated to explaining absolutely everything in
1:42
Speaker 1: the universe, and that explained that includes gap years. This
1:46
Speaker 1: is a thing. And I should also point out to
1:48
Speaker 1: the reason I picked this. Uh, it's not a turkey
1:54
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving on the brain, but it's not a turkey now.
1:58
Speaker 1: The reason I picked this was because when I was
2:01
Speaker 1: a teenager, I had never heard of a gap here,
2:04
Speaker 1: and up until very recently, I had heard the term
2:08
Speaker 1: and thought it meant taking a year off after college
2:12
Speaker 1: before you go into the workforce. Uh. Yeah, I did
2:16
Speaker 1: not know you could totally do that if you want
2:19
Speaker 1: to completely ruin your life. Shoot, I didn't. I mean
2:25
Speaker 1: I didn't enter the workforce allows in my thirties. No,
2:29
Speaker 1: it's true, it's true. I had jobs, right, Yeah, so um, No,
2:34
Speaker 1: it's it's a gap year. From what I understand is,
2:37
Speaker 1: like you said, it's between it's taking a year off
2:40
Speaker 1: between high school and college to do things like find yourself,
2:44
Speaker 1: to make yourself a more creative person, to um see
2:49
Speaker 1: the world, to immerse yourself in other cultures. Maybe volunteer. Yeah,
2:54
Speaker 1: volunteering is a big one. UM. But the the crux
2:58
Speaker 1: of it is that you are you are becoming a
3:02
Speaker 1: more mature person during this year between high school and college,
3:06
Speaker 1: almost like it's a rite of passage, and that when
3:09
Speaker 1: you're done with this year and you go to enter college,
3:13
Speaker 1: you're a UM, you're much stabler, You've worked on things
3:16
Speaker 1: like grit and resilience and UM, you've you're a much
3:20
Speaker 1: wiser person than you would have been had you just
3:23
Speaker 1: hoped from high school off to college. That's the idealized
3:27
Speaker 1: version of it. Yeah, that's the idea. UM. I Like
3:29
Speaker 1: I said, I did not know this was an option
3:32
Speaker 1: to me. UM. And maybe that's because I'm a I'm
3:36
Speaker 1: an American like you, because this is not it's gaining
3:40
Speaker 1: some traction in America, but it is certainly not. Uh,
3:44
Speaker 1: we're not gap You're heavy here in the States. It
3:46
Speaker 1: seems to be very popular in Europe, especially among the Brits,
3:51
Speaker 1: and then especially among the Aussies. They like to take
3:55
Speaker 1: a year off and and go see the world and
3:58
Speaker 1: do stuff and kind of this what they want to
4:00
Speaker 1: do in college. Yeah, And I mean it's been around
4:03
Speaker 1: for a little while, but it really did just kind
4:06
Speaker 1: of stick to the UK and then Australia and even
4:10
Speaker 1: still today. Like I'm sure there's plenty of people who
4:12
Speaker 1: have no idea what a gap here is who are
4:14
Speaker 1: listening to this. Did you do it or I'm not
4:15
Speaker 1: I know you didn't do it, but did you know
4:18
Speaker 1: this was a thing? Um? No, I didn't. I didn't.
4:22
Speaker 1: I think in the United States it does happen more
4:25
Speaker 1: than we realize, but people don't call it a gap here,
4:27
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily intentional. Did you take a gap here? No? No,
4:31
Speaker 1: I didn't. Yes, I did, And I just kind of
4:36
Speaker 1: worked my way through, um and over time, actually going
4:40
Speaker 1: from college college I actually kind of became a much
4:44
Speaker 1: better student than I was had I just followed like
4:47
Speaker 1: a traditional path, um, yeah, where you just go from
4:51
Speaker 1: you know, one high school to your you know college,
4:54
Speaker 1: your choice. Uh. And so I guess I had some
4:58
Speaker 1: of the benefits of a gap here. But I didn't
5:00
Speaker 1: just take a year off and travel or or even
5:02
Speaker 1: you know, work or anything. He took a year off
5:04
Speaker 1: while you were in school, right, I'm like Van Wilder
5:09
Speaker 1: and Ferris Bueller rolled into one. I will say this,
5:12
Speaker 1: you know, I've I've talked about it before. It took
5:14
Speaker 1: me six years to complete my degree at Georgia, and
5:16
Speaker 1: the first three of those years I had I was
5:21
Speaker 1: completely up to date, and then it took me three
5:23
Speaker 1: more years to get that final year. Well yeah, let's
5:27
Speaker 1: I mean, what was it that stretched it out? I
5:30
Speaker 1: just I just tapped the brakes. Man. I was having
5:32
Speaker 1: a good time and I dropped my first classes like
5:36
Speaker 1: my junior year. I was like, man, that's that feels
5:40
Speaker 1: good to go to a class once and be like, nah,
5:45
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not gonna come back. And so
5:47
Speaker 1: after I did that a couple of times, I felt
5:49
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, paying my own way at
5:51
Speaker 1: this point. Um, my parents helped me out the first
5:54
Speaker 1: couple of years, and then I kind of just worked
5:55
Speaker 1: my way through. But uh, I was like, you know,
5:58
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it style and I'm just gonna slow
6:02
Speaker 1: my role and I love Athens, and my friends are
6:05
Speaker 1: all here, so I'm just gonna take maybe a class
6:08
Speaker 1: a quarter, maybe two, and it takes me how long
6:11
Speaker 1: you know it's gonna take me? How long it takes me?
6:14
Speaker 1: So that that song don't go back to Rockdale, like
6:16
Speaker 1: really spoke to you, don't go back to Rockville. Well, no,
6:19
Speaker 1: it was originally Rockdale, it was. It was, Yeah, it
6:22
Speaker 1: was a Michael Stipe song maybe or he had something
6:25
Speaker 1: to do with it, and and they were talking about like Conyers.
6:27
Speaker 1: Oh really, I did not know that. And I the
6:30
Speaker 1: reason I also said Rockdale because I couldn't remember what
6:33
Speaker 1: they ended up naming the song, right, But it really
6:36
Speaker 1: was originally Rockdale. I believe you Rockdale County. So you
6:40
Speaker 1: use the Spicoli method of graduating your senior year? Yeah,
6:44
Speaker 1: I was. You know, we're gen xers, so we very
6:47
Speaker 1: famously as a generation, weren't like chomping to jump into
6:51
Speaker 1: the corporate workforce when we were twenty two years old, right,
6:54
Speaker 1: we were way too cynical for that. No, man, I
6:57
Speaker 1: had no aims to to get a real job anytime soon.
7:00
Speaker 1: So no, And did you have friends, because I certainly did?
7:03
Speaker 1: Who man? Hit that track? We're in business school, um
7:08
Speaker 1: like had their major completed in like three or three
7:10
Speaker 1: and a half years, maybe went on to get their
7:13
Speaker 1: m b a. And were miserable by like age twenty two. Well,
7:18
Speaker 1: I knew people. I wouldn't say my close friends, because
7:21
Speaker 1: my close friends were all sort of in my boat,
7:24
Speaker 1: which is to say, the the slow steamer paddle boat
7:28
Speaker 1: that the Colie method at the end of the race. Yeah,
7:31
Speaker 1: but I knew of people who did that, and they,
7:33
Speaker 1: you know, some of them got jobs, you know, like
7:36
Speaker 1: real jobs at twenty three years old. And I just
7:39
Speaker 1: I don't know, it seemed so weird to me at
7:41
Speaker 1: the time, but now that's sort of what it seems
7:43
Speaker 1: like most people are trying to do. No, it's and
7:46
Speaker 1: it's true. But and I remember, like all of those
7:48
Speaker 1: people are the ones who have had four oh one
7:49
Speaker 1: case for like fifteen years longer than you and I
7:52
Speaker 1: have a good point. But they also, if I remember correctly,
7:55
Speaker 1: we're to a person miserable at least at some point
7:59
Speaker 1: immediately host college. They were not happy people. And a
8:02
Speaker 1: lot of that reason is because you get burnout. And
8:06
Speaker 1: I was researching burnout, and it's definitely a thing. It's
8:09
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's its own thing. But I couldn't
8:11
Speaker 1: find any studies on like, you know, what was actually
8:14
Speaker 1: going on neurologically or biologically. Now I was kind of hoping,
8:20
Speaker 1: but but it is treated as a real thing school burnout,
8:23
Speaker 1: study burnout. And there's this idea that if you just
8:26
Speaker 1: kind of hit the books too hard for too prolonged
8:29
Speaker 1: a time, you develop a mental and even physical and
8:32
Speaker 1: emotional fatigue to where your stress levels just as such
8:37
Speaker 1: a high pitch that you're basically your baseline is raised
8:40
Speaker 1: and you're you're cognitively affected your perhaps you develop a
8:45
Speaker 1: diagnosable mental health disorder. UM. I read that something like
8:50
Speaker 1: a third of students enter in college in some poll
8:54
Speaker 1: taken in the last few years had considered suicide and
8:58
Speaker 1: that they had diagnosable mental health conditions and they attribute
9:02
Speaker 1: this to burnout. And so that is one of the
9:05
Speaker 1: one of the big marks in the favor of taking
9:08
Speaker 1: a gap year, is this idea that you can you
9:11
Speaker 1: can you know, cut that that cord of straight from
9:14
Speaker 1: high school to college and then into the workforce, um
9:18
Speaker 1: and just just like take some me time and do
9:21
Speaker 1: something different and really explore yourself in the world, and
9:24
Speaker 1: in doing so, you'll kind of recharge your batteries and
9:27
Speaker 1: you can hit college with a fresh start rather than
9:30
Speaker 1: grinding it out from high school straight into college. Yeah,
9:34
Speaker 1: and I actual should add this. Back when we were
9:36
Speaker 1: in high school and applying to colleges, it was a
9:39
Speaker 1: different deal. Like I, I didn't have to work very
9:43
Speaker 1: hard in high school to get a's and b's. My
9:45
Speaker 1: high school. It was a good public high school, but
9:47
Speaker 1: it was not that challenging. Is that the social experiment
9:50
Speaker 1: high school? Okay, it was just a regular high school.
9:54
Speaker 1: But do you remember, like didn't you have like no
9:56
Speaker 1: walls and and just did you see all those people
10:00
Speaker 1: who wrote in and said, Josh is right, this is
10:02
Speaker 1: like an actual experiment that was done in the seventies. Well,
10:06
Speaker 1: maybe they'll publish the findings because I didn't you know
10:09
Speaker 1: it was a secret experiment if it was one. But uh,
10:13
Speaker 1: it just wasn't that hard, and so I was never
10:16
Speaker 1: burnt out and felt like, boy, I could use some
10:18
Speaker 1: time off. And then getting into college was a lot
10:21
Speaker 1: easier back then too, before the Hope scholarship, Yeah, it was.
10:25
Speaker 1: It was not nearly as competitive even for state schools,
10:28
Speaker 1: and um, there are high schools, though, like that are
10:32
Speaker 1: really tough now. Public high schools. Roswell High School here
10:35
Speaker 1: in the suburbs is notorious for being really really hard
10:39
Speaker 1: and competitive, and like there are seventeen year old kids
10:43
Speaker 1: suffering from academic burnout because of such a challenging environment
10:48
Speaker 1: and then trying to get into the schools, you know,
10:49
Speaker 1: with a you know, I have a four oh, and
10:51
Speaker 1: it's not good enough, and it's like, are you kidding me? Right,
10:54
Speaker 1: it's like a four oh. In our days, you kind
10:56
Speaker 1: of write your ticket, you know, oh, yeah, you go
10:59
Speaker 1: to Harvard Gale since you had your pick basically. But
11:01
Speaker 1: all that is to say that I get the benefits
11:05
Speaker 1: for sure of a gap here these days, Yeah, because
11:08
Speaker 1: I think what you're saying is that things have changed
11:11
Speaker 1: since we were in high school or college. Yeah, and
11:15
Speaker 1: like it's that I guess it's the whole rise of
11:17
Speaker 1: helicopter parenting, where kids are just like, it's not good
11:20
Speaker 1: enough to have good grades. You have to have a
11:21
Speaker 1: well rounded resume by the time you are trying to
11:23
Speaker 1: get to college. And yeah, kids are probably way more
11:26
Speaker 1: burned out today than they were back in our day.
11:29
Speaker 1: Back in our day, if you were burned out. It
11:31
Speaker 1: meant you smoked a lot of pots teenager burnout, right,
11:36
Speaker 1: So so there's a gap here. There is such a thing.
11:39
Speaker 1: And like you said, it's it's kind of popular in Britain.
11:42
Speaker 1: There was a little lull in two thousand eleven, I
11:45
Speaker 1: think between two thousand and eleven and fourteen where it
11:48
Speaker 1: drops significantly, which we'll talk about later, but um, it's
11:51
Speaker 1: studied again and it seems to be a rite of
11:55
Speaker 1: passage among British um high school kids. Uh, that's here
11:59
Speaker 1: to day. It's kind of a thing. Not not everyone
12:02
Speaker 1: does it, in fact, not even close to the majority
12:04
Speaker 1: does it, but a significant amount too. And the United
12:07
Speaker 1: States is far less. It's something like eleven in the
12:10
Speaker 1: in Britain, two compared to one point two percent in
12:13
Speaker 1: the United States. That was back in two thousand and eleven.
12:16
Speaker 1: And this are sort of old, but I bet it's
12:17
Speaker 1: not too different now, right, Yeah. And the reason why
12:21
Speaker 1: it's is I think it's kind of rooted in that
12:23
Speaker 1: American mentality of like, can you really afford to take
12:26
Speaker 1: a year off? Even if you can afford it financially,
12:29
Speaker 1: what are you doing to your future? And that's something
12:31
Speaker 1: that people have really started to explore, especially since Malia
12:36
Speaker 1: Obama took a gap year famously back and I think
12:40
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen. It really kind of called the idea
12:43
Speaker 1: to the attention of Americans more than it happened before. Yeah,
12:46
Speaker 1: she went to she did it through a program, and
12:49
Speaker 1: we'll talk a bit about this. There's a couple of
12:51
Speaker 1: ways you can do it. You can wing it and
12:53
Speaker 1: do your own thing, or you can actually sign up
12:55
Speaker 1: for a program that will um set you up for
12:58
Speaker 1: your gap year. Used one called Where there Be Dragons.
13:02
Speaker 1: It's a pretty crazy actual name. And she went to
13:06
Speaker 1: Peru and Bolivia and at one point and turned uh
13:10
Speaker 1: sort of unfortunately at the Weinstein Company pre uh you know,
13:15
Speaker 1: scandal right, so um so yeah, but she brought like
13:20
Speaker 1: a lot of attention to the idea of like taking
13:25
Speaker 1: a gap year, and then went to Harvard because this
13:27
Speaker 1: it's not like she was slouching. And that's sort of
13:29
Speaker 1: the point as a gap here. It doesn't mean you're slouching.
13:32
Speaker 1: It means you're probably you're probably more of a go
13:36
Speaker 1: getter than somebody who might just go straight into you know,
13:39
Speaker 1: public university, right exactly, that there's this whole kind of
13:43
Speaker 1: an year two at this idea that like you're going
13:45
Speaker 1: to you're so good at this, you can take a
13:48
Speaker 1: year off and go see the world and and really
13:51
Speaker 1: get an idea of how the other half lives before
13:54
Speaker 1: coming in to get your education, in the hopes that
13:57
Speaker 1: your education will now be based on a foundation of
14:00
Speaker 1: understanding and awareness rather than like entitlement, so that after
14:05
Speaker 1: you do graduate, you can take everything you learned and
14:07
Speaker 1: use your powers for good, like Spider Man. Yeah, you
14:11
Speaker 1: want to take a break. Yeah, let's let's take a break,
14:13
Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and talk about where all
14:15
Speaker 1: this uh laziness started in the nineteen sixties and jo alright, Chuck,
14:45
Speaker 1: So it's kind of appropriate that the gap here started
14:48
Speaker 1: in the sixties. Um there there, you know it was
14:52
Speaker 1: the sixties. You don't really need to say anything more
14:54
Speaker 1: than that. Yeah, In the United States, our conception of
14:58
Speaker 1: the sixties is pretty close to what happened in the
15:00
Speaker 1: sixties and Great Britain, Um, where the gap here kind
15:04
Speaker 1: of began. Um, And there was already this kind of
15:09
Speaker 1: desire for more and for meaning and spirituality among Western
15:14
Speaker 1: kids that really kind of dates back to the Beat,
15:17
Speaker 1: the Beat generation. Um, who really kind of laid this path.
15:22
Speaker 1: But um, there wasn't anything like a gap here at
15:25
Speaker 1: the time. And even in the sixties when people started
15:27
Speaker 1: setting up these the thing these programs that would become
15:31
Speaker 1: the foundations of what would become the gap here, um,
15:35
Speaker 1: they still didn't call it a gap here. It was
15:37
Speaker 1: more like a year of giving back, of seeing the world. Um.
15:41
Speaker 1: All the stuff that you would do on a gap
15:44
Speaker 1: here today, they kind of came along in separate little
15:47
Speaker 1: instances that eventually kind of coalesced into this formalized procedure
15:52
Speaker 1: of taking a gap here. Yeah, and it seems like, um,
15:56
Speaker 1: and we got some of this stuff from there is
15:58
Speaker 1: a website called gap here dot um if you want
16:01
Speaker 1: to know everything you need to know about gap years
16:04
Speaker 1: and uh it seems to have really kicked off in
16:06
Speaker 1: earnest aside from just like sort of hippies going off
16:09
Speaker 1: to find themselves in India in the late sixties and
16:12
Speaker 1: sixties seven with a man named Nicholas McLean Bristol who
16:16
Speaker 1: set up something called Project Trust wherein he took some uh,
16:20
Speaker 1: some kids to Ethiopia and to do exactly what you
16:25
Speaker 1: do at a gap here, which is to help people
16:27
Speaker 1: out there to learn about the country to sort of, um,
16:30
Speaker 1: devote yourself to them for a period of time, to
16:33
Speaker 1: learn about them and yourself and how to you know,
16:36
Speaker 1: live independently and stuff like that. And after that it
16:40
Speaker 1: seemed like the gap here was really sort of a thing. Yeah,
16:44
Speaker 1: well they made it a thing, like they were the
16:46
Speaker 1: first ones to establish it. And then so that happened
16:49
Speaker 1: simultaneously to like you said, those hippies going to India
16:52
Speaker 1: to find themselves and following the Hippie trail, and that
16:55
Speaker 1: was that was a thing that was significant. Like there
16:58
Speaker 1: were there were people who would go backpack from London
17:03
Speaker 1: to Catman do in some cases or at least to
17:07
Speaker 1: goa on the coast of India. They would go through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
17:12
Speaker 1: they would like hitchhike through these places and um, it
17:16
Speaker 1: was like a real experience to do something like this.
17:19
Speaker 1: So that was going on at the same time that,
17:23
Speaker 1: like the a formal program that introduced the idea of
17:26
Speaker 1: taking a year off and going to you know, volunteer
17:29
Speaker 1: was going on as well. Um. And there was a
17:32
Speaker 1: guy who in the nineteen seventies, I think nineteen seventy three,
17:36
Speaker 1: his name was Graham Turner. His nickname was screw as
17:39
Speaker 1: k r o O. Uh. Yeah. He bought a double
17:45
Speaker 1: decker bus like a you know, the famous London busses
17:49
Speaker 1: and sold tickets on it and drove from London to
17:53
Speaker 1: Catman Do following that hippie trail and really kind of
17:57
Speaker 1: um spread the word that this was a it was
18:00
Speaker 1: no longer just backpacking. You could take like a tour,
18:03
Speaker 1: an actual tour of us tour down this hippie trail,
18:06
Speaker 1: and um, he actually ended up founding two companies. One
18:10
Speaker 1: was top Deck Travel which refers to that bus travel,
18:13
Speaker 1: and another one's Flight Center, and they were like the
18:15
Speaker 1: first hippie gap year travel companies that were ever established,
18:21
Speaker 1: which was another big deal to help kind of build
18:24
Speaker 1: this foundation for gap years. Yeah, and he was successful.
18:28
Speaker 1: He was an ausie that was based out of London.
18:30
Speaker 1: But um, I think this the first one was in
18:33
Speaker 1: seventy three and by uh he had between seventy and
18:38
Speaker 1: eighty of these busses. Yeah, I saw that. So it
18:40
Speaker 1: really really gained steam pretty fast because, like you said,
18:44
Speaker 1: people were doing it anyway and for someone to make
18:46
Speaker 1: it easier on you by formalizing it and saying, hey,
18:50
Speaker 1: we'll take you. Just save up a little bit of money.
18:53
Speaker 1: And you know, these were bus trips, so imagine they
18:55
Speaker 1: were fairly affordable in the seventies and early eighties. Um,
19:00
Speaker 1: so it didn't cost a lot of money and it
19:02
Speaker 1: really made uh gap here's kind of explode at the time. Yep.
19:06
Speaker 1: And then so you've got all these kind of components
19:09
Speaker 1: revving out there doing their own thing. Um. Another one
19:12
Speaker 1: that kind of came along and helped things was when
19:14
Speaker 1: Tony and Maureen Wheeler um did like a trip to
19:19
Speaker 1: Asia over land. Like they basically backpacked to Asia from
19:24
Speaker 1: I think London, um, and they they made it to Australia,
19:29
Speaker 1: I believe, where they lived for a few years and
19:30
Speaker 1: got jobs and we're just kind of hanging out. Um.
19:33
Speaker 1: But people they met in Australia kept bothering them for
19:36
Speaker 1: like tips on how to do that same route to Asia.
19:40
Speaker 1: And they ended up putting everything together into a book
19:43
Speaker 1: called Asia on the Cheap and um Across Asia and
19:48
Speaker 1: the Cheap Sorry, and um, they they they wrote it themselves,
19:52
Speaker 1: they published themselves. Um. Tony took it to bookstores and said, hey,
19:56
Speaker 1: I've got this book, you guys want this, And people
19:58
Speaker 1: started buying it, and it became the first title in
20:01
Speaker 1: the Lonely Planet series. They ended up founding Lonely Planet. Yeah,
20:04
Speaker 1: which is I mean, if you if you're a kid
20:07
Speaker 1: who has put on a backpack, then you have probably
20:10
Speaker 1: uh seen some of the Lonely Planet titles in your
20:13
Speaker 1: in your travels. I never owned one. Uh I think
20:17
Speaker 1: we were me and my buddy where Let's go dudes.
20:21
Speaker 1: So there was another brand called the you know, Let's
20:23
Speaker 1: Go Europe or whatever, Let's go Costa Rica. So we
20:26
Speaker 1: had Let's Go Europe. But they were definitely Lonely Planet
20:29
Speaker 1: people in the hostels and we used to get into
20:31
Speaker 1: you know, knife and chain fights with them over which
20:35
Speaker 1: was you know, the better the better book series. Yeah,
20:37
Speaker 1: those are brutal fights stuff. But that so that's another
20:41
Speaker 1: thing too. So and so as all this, all these
20:43
Speaker 1: people are kind of contributing these these different pieces, Like
20:46
Speaker 1: this alternative travel industry is starting to develop. Right where before,
20:52
Speaker 1: if you wanted to go see the world, you really
20:54
Speaker 1: kind of had to pay like a tour operator or
20:56
Speaker 1: a travel agent or something like that. And now if
20:59
Speaker 1: you had the where with all to say, I don't
21:01
Speaker 1: want to do all that tour stuff I want to
21:02
Speaker 1: see the real world. UM. There was this new kind
21:05
Speaker 1: of industry that was being generated in the late sixties
21:08
Speaker 1: and early seventies, mid seventies at the latest UM that
21:11
Speaker 1: would help you do that, like on the cheap um
21:15
Speaker 1: on your own, like you could buy a Lonely Planet
21:17
Speaker 1: book and follow the guide and just do it yourself.
21:20
Speaker 1: UM and and all this stuff was new, and so
21:24
Speaker 1: as people started to kind of notice that like, oh,
21:28
Speaker 1: this would this would I could go do this for
21:30
Speaker 1: a year, and maybe a good time to do it
21:31
Speaker 1: would be after high school, this idea of a gap
21:35
Speaker 1: year really started to kind of develop. UM. In nine
21:39
Speaker 1: seven there was a group called the Gap Activity Projects.
21:43
Speaker 1: I think it's called Latitude Global Volunteering now, and they
21:46
Speaker 1: kind of picked up where Project Trust um let off.
21:50
Speaker 1: And I think Project Trust is still around, so I
21:52
Speaker 1: guess they would be competitors or colleagues or whatever, but
21:56
Speaker 1: where they basically organized tours for people who want to
21:59
Speaker 1: go volunteer or where you just say there's why I
22:02
Speaker 1: want to go and that's what I want to do,
22:04
Speaker 1: and they say, perfect, We'll handle all of your visa applications,
22:07
Speaker 1: will handle all of your plane tickets, will handle your itinerary.
22:11
Speaker 1: On this day, you're gonna go sight seeing. On this day,
22:13
Speaker 1: you're gonna go, um, you know, help trap poachers on
22:16
Speaker 1: a on a safari um, Like, we'll handle all your
22:20
Speaker 1: stuff for you, exactly. But we'll handle all this stuff
22:23
Speaker 1: for you. It's just give us some money. And that's
22:26
Speaker 1: really an important point that gets kind of overlooked. Like
22:30
Speaker 1: what this is is a sector of the travel industry,
22:34
Speaker 1: like a booming, thriving sector of the travel industry, where
22:37
Speaker 1: other parts of the travel industry are in real trouble
22:40
Speaker 1: or work for a little while from things like um,
22:43
Speaker 1: Expedia and things that let you do it yourself on
22:45
Speaker 1: the Internet. Yeah, that's what it's called. I had an
22:50
Speaker 1: aneurism and I thought the Internet was called Expedia. But
22:53
Speaker 1: but you know that kind of I mean, I know
22:55
Speaker 1: there are still travel agents, but the Internet largely helped
22:59
Speaker 1: kill that end street, except for UM, because you used
23:02
Speaker 1: to call a travel agent just to book a plane
23:04
Speaker 1: ticket a lot of times. But what I find hardening, Chuck,
23:07
Speaker 1: is like that the industry and others like it are
23:10
Speaker 1: still around. Like there was a huge transition period where
23:15
Speaker 1: in the Internet disrupted everything from you know, magazines to
23:19
Speaker 1: to travel industry. Um, but it's stabilized, Like a lot
23:23
Speaker 1: of people have had to go find other work. But
23:26
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of travel agents around and they've
23:28
Speaker 1: like figured out how to carve their own niche and
23:31
Speaker 1: the industry has survived still. So the Internet is not
23:34
Speaker 1: like a cold killer of it did not necessarily mean
23:39
Speaker 1: the death knell for for all things great. But I
23:42
Speaker 1: think now travel agents are more likely to do for
23:46
Speaker 1: adults what they do for the gap here, which is
23:48
Speaker 1: planned like an adventure for you, and a little less
23:51
Speaker 1: like Hey, I need to fly to Cleveland next week.
23:54
Speaker 1: What kind of flights you got? Yeah, you're kind of
23:56
Speaker 1: a simpleton if you're buying something from a travel agent
23:59
Speaker 1: for that. How do they make their money? I don't
24:01
Speaker 1: even remember. I mean I used travel age. Did they
24:03
Speaker 1: just they had a vig that you had to pay? Yeah?
24:06
Speaker 1: I would guess it's kind of like something, here's what
24:09
Speaker 1: your package costs, and they, you know, spent X number
24:12
Speaker 1: of dollars putting it all together and added like a
24:15
Speaker 1: ten or mark up onto that and that's what you pay.
24:18
Speaker 1: I don't remember. That's what I would guess. Those were
24:21
Speaker 1: the days, weren't they. I can't imagine anyone else booking
24:26
Speaker 1: my travel now, Like occasionally through work, we'll have to
24:29
Speaker 1: do something and someone will offer to book travel for us,
24:32
Speaker 1: and where both of us are always like no, no, no, no, no, no,
24:35
Speaker 1: you'll do it wrong. That is the like wakes me
24:39
Speaker 1: up in a cold sweat, is that someone has booked
24:41
Speaker 1: me like a window seat or something. Right, what about
24:44
Speaker 1: my sky mouse? Yeah? That do booked me in a
24:47
Speaker 1: window seat. Man, I have a bladder the size of
24:49
Speaker 1: like a shelled p I have to sit in the
24:53
Speaker 1: aisle in an hour flight. I'll get up like three
24:56
Speaker 1: times sometimes if I'm not careful. Yeah it was that
24:59
Speaker 1: wasn't you other day? Now? That was someone else someone
25:01
Speaker 1: was asking me about. Maybe it was Anol got you
25:05
Speaker 1: know the old request to swap seats so h they
25:09
Speaker 1: could sit together. Yeah, and no Noll didn't do it
25:12
Speaker 1: and was feeling bad about it, and I made him
25:14
Speaker 1: feel better about it. You know, that's so funny, Chuck,
25:17
Speaker 1: I've got some bottom mine hoff going on, because you
25:19
Speaker 1: mean and I had a conversation about that, and I've
25:22
Speaker 1: seen on like my Cora newsletter and then another just
25:25
Speaker 1: random searches that has been coming up a lot lately,
25:29
Speaker 1: like people want to know what to say if they
25:31
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. Yeah, I mean no, I
25:33
Speaker 1: think his decision was very cut and dry. It was,
25:37
Speaker 1: you know, a boyfriend and a girlfriend that required Noel
25:40
Speaker 1: to move from the aisle to the center seat. And
25:42
Speaker 1: I was like, don't feel bad about that, man, Like,
25:44
Speaker 1: they can survive a two hour flight. If it's mommy
25:48
Speaker 1: and little kid, or like elderly couple or something like that,
25:51
Speaker 1: that's that's something that would definitely at least consider, right,
25:56
Speaker 1: But I just want to sit next to my sweetie
25:58
Speaker 1: for the next ninety minutes. I'm like, I'm sorry, we
26:01
Speaker 1: can't be a part. Yeah, you can be a part, yeah,
26:04
Speaker 1: Or you could take another flight that's an option, all right,
26:07
Speaker 1: or you can stay home. I don't care. It could
26:09
Speaker 1: be nice about it, but yeah, I don't think. Uh.
26:12
Speaker 1: In fact, I's told Noel, I said, they're actually in
26:14
Speaker 1: the wrong for even asking you to do that. A
26:17
Speaker 1: lot of people would argue that. A lot of people
26:20
Speaker 1: would argue that. I mean, like I can see saying, well,
26:22
Speaker 1: this is an aisle for an aisle. Oh I would
26:26
Speaker 1: ask that, but it's like seat aisle for middle now,
26:29
Speaker 1: or you can't you know, like the aisle seat is king,
26:32
Speaker 1: it's the ace, it's the trump card. You can't just
26:36
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't just willy nilly ask for an
26:39
Speaker 1: aisle seat because there are window people though some people
26:42
Speaker 1: love the window. But what I know there are none
26:44
Speaker 1: of is there are no middle seat lovers. That is
26:47
Speaker 1: absolutely true. Uh so, well, geez man, should we take
26:51
Speaker 1: another break or press on? Uh? Well, maybe let's get
26:54
Speaker 1: through the nineties, um, because the backpacking, the independent back
27:00
Speaker 1: packer thing really came along in the eighties and nineties. Uh,
27:04
Speaker 1: and much more so in the States. And that was
27:07
Speaker 1: when you it was sort of the salad days of
27:09
Speaker 1: flying because plane tickets were got really cheap there for
27:12
Speaker 1: a while, and it was it was clearly not sustainable
27:16
Speaker 1: because you know, you could fly for two hundred dollars
27:20
Speaker 1: a long way on a flight with like nineteen other people.
27:24
Speaker 1: And I never had the business sense to look around
27:26
Speaker 1: and be like something about this is not going to
27:28
Speaker 1: end well, um, And you know what happened was they
27:32
Speaker 1: realized they needed to fill up flights and they could
27:34
Speaker 1: charge a lot more and people would still fly. But
27:37
Speaker 1: when flights were super super cheap or they had stuff
27:40
Speaker 1: like air Hitch, which is what I used to go
27:43
Speaker 1: to Europe. Um. I don't know if they still have
27:45
Speaker 1: air Hitch, but there are a lot of little You
27:48
Speaker 1: bought a coupon basically what for like a hundred and
27:52
Speaker 1: fifty bucks that said, you know, you go to the
27:56
Speaker 1: well basically, you go to the airport on this day
27:59
Speaker 1: and we will it you on some flight to Europe.
28:02
Speaker 1: So it's it's tailor made for the backpacker. He's like,
28:05
Speaker 1: I don't really care where I started, just get me
28:07
Speaker 1: over there. That's awesome, man. And so they had partner airlines,
28:10
Speaker 1: so you would buy a coupon and then it was
28:12
Speaker 1: very exciting. You would go and you would show up
28:15
Speaker 1: at the airport not knowing where you were going to
28:16
Speaker 1: be that night, and that's pretty cool. It was very cool,
28:19
Speaker 1: and it always worked out. Not so great if you
28:21
Speaker 1: have a meeting in Munich that day. No, no, no no,
28:24
Speaker 1: but because that's really rolling the dice. But it was
28:27
Speaker 1: super cheap. Um, like I think it was like three
28:30
Speaker 1: d bucks round trip to Europe. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, even
28:34
Speaker 1: in like the eighties or early nineties, that was super cheap.
28:36
Speaker 1: You can't fly to Nashville for that now from Inland,
28:39
Speaker 1: try it. You can't do it. You can't do it.
28:41
Speaker 1: So um. Yeah, the nineties the nineties kind of saw
28:44
Speaker 1: a bit of an explosion, especially in the UK UM
28:47
Speaker 1: because there was this now kind of structure that people
28:51
Speaker 1: could just kind of jump into and say I'm taking
28:53
Speaker 1: a gap years see you next year, and they could
28:56
Speaker 1: just change what they wanted to do, and they could
28:59
Speaker 1: also find what they needed to do. They could get
29:01
Speaker 1: information a lot more easily thanks to gap year dot Com.
29:04
Speaker 1: That that website that you cited earlier, that was found
29:09
Speaker 1: and it's widely considered one of the first social media sites.
29:12
Speaker 1: And it's exclusively for people taking gap years, and it
29:15
Speaker 1: always has been and it's still around and they still
29:18
Speaker 1: give great advice on um you know what, what what
29:22
Speaker 1: to do during a gap year, how to do it,
29:24
Speaker 1: how to cut costs? Um, what programs are good, what aren't.
29:27
Speaker 1: It's just a good website. Yeah, So how about we
29:30
Speaker 1: talk about all that stuff after another break? Okay and
29:38
Speaker 1: things job job sto. Alright, Chuck, another break is coming gone.
30:03
Speaker 1: It's trying to talk again about gap years. Yeah, so
30:07
Speaker 1: first of all, let's talk to parents of kids. UM.
30:09
Speaker 1: If you're a parent, and your kid is talking about
30:11
Speaker 1: taking a gap year. Don't freak out. Um. We we
30:15
Speaker 1: get the inclination maybe to get nervous about what goes
30:19
Speaker 1: on during that year. Will my child ever come back?
30:22
Speaker 1: Are there any dangers, like real you know, concerns. I'm
30:25
Speaker 1: not like dismissing those concerns, but it's it's okay. Your
30:30
Speaker 1: your kid most likely is going to come back enriched. Um.
30:35
Speaker 1: And they've done studies that found that kids do better
30:38
Speaker 1: in that first year of college. A lot of them have.
30:41
Speaker 1: I think they zero in on their major more quickly
30:44
Speaker 1: after doing a gap year. Yeah. One thing I saw
30:46
Speaker 1: on that note, Chuck, was that, um, there was a
30:49
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal article about gap years, and they profiled
30:52
Speaker 1: a woman who had gone to India to help bring
30:56
Speaker 1: solar power to a village and had lived an attempt
31:00
Speaker 1: for a few weeks. It was like, I hate this
31:04
Speaker 1: more than anything I've ever hated before, and I'm not
31:07
Speaker 1: doing this. And so she figured out during her gap
31:09
Speaker 1: year that she didn't want to do that. Whereas if
31:11
Speaker 1: she had gone to college, um, straight out of high school,
31:15
Speaker 1: she would have applied herself to that, gone through college
31:19
Speaker 1: and then gone and done that and found out that
31:21
Speaker 1: she hated it. So she said, in that sense, this
31:23
Speaker 1: gap year saved her about two hundred grand and four
31:26
Speaker 1: years interesting by telling her what she didn't like exactly,
31:29
Speaker 1: which is a really good point. I mean, like you
31:32
Speaker 1: mostly you learned what you do want to do, or
31:34
Speaker 1: it helps you. I think there's some statistic that shows
31:37
Speaker 1: something some high percentage of children who go on a
31:41
Speaker 1: gap year have their um their path forward reinforced from
31:46
Speaker 1: that gap here. But I'm sure there's a significant number
31:49
Speaker 1: of people are like, I don't want to help people.
31:51
Speaker 1: I'm a missing another concerned parents might have. As you know,
31:55
Speaker 1: there's so much focus on the resume for that college application,
31:59
Speaker 1: and gap years look great on a resume. Now, um
32:02
Speaker 1: colleges get it, and a lot of colleges, if you're accepted,
32:06
Speaker 1: can't even defer your uh, your start by a year
32:09
Speaker 1: if you want to go on a gap year. So
32:10
Speaker 1: they really are trying to work hand in hand with
32:13
Speaker 1: high school students to say get out there, volunteer, immerse
32:17
Speaker 1: yourself into culture, and like come back and see us
32:20
Speaker 1: when you know when you're nineteen and you're not just
32:24
Speaker 1: you just don't want to like funnel beer all the time.
32:27
Speaker 1: Because you're fresh out of the house, right, and like
32:30
Speaker 1: some some colleges get it so much that like, for example,
32:33
Speaker 1: Princeton not only has like a deferment program where you
32:37
Speaker 1: can say I'm in, I'll be, I'll see in a year,
32:39
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go take a year off, they say, well, wait,
32:42
Speaker 1: we actually have a project or a program that helps
32:45
Speaker 1: you go do that stuff for the gap year. And
32:47
Speaker 1: it's you know, through the university and FSU. Florida State
32:51
Speaker 1: University has a program where if you defer for a
32:55
Speaker 1: gap year, you're automatically considered for financial aid to help
32:59
Speaker 1: you in your gap here. Cool, yeah, it is pretty cool.
33:02
Speaker 1: They also have a clown school, don't they, f S
33:05
Speaker 1: you does? Isn't Florida State Don't they have like a
33:07
Speaker 1: circus college or I mean, it would makes sense because
33:10
Speaker 1: Florida is like traditionally like the state where circuses went
33:14
Speaker 1: and took a rest for the Really, yeah, I didn't
33:17
Speaker 1: know that, Well that makes sense. I wonder if I'm
33:19
Speaker 1: gonna have to look that up. I don't know. I
33:21
Speaker 1: know there's something some kind of circus school in Florida,
33:23
Speaker 1: but it may not be tied to Florida State. I
33:26
Speaker 1: could be though it very welcome to be so. There's
33:29
Speaker 1: a book that a woman named Kristen White wrote called
33:32
Speaker 1: The Complete Guide to the Gap here where she talks
33:35
Speaker 1: about some of the things you can do that aren't
33:38
Speaker 1: just like partying around the world, and volunteering is of
33:42
Speaker 1: course one of those things, as well as living with
33:45
Speaker 1: a family and another culture. That's one of the best
33:48
Speaker 1: ways to really learn about a new place is to
33:52
Speaker 1: live with a host family. Can i um? Can I?
33:55
Speaker 1: Also add on gap year dot com there was an
33:58
Speaker 1: opinion piece that said, if you really want to live
34:01
Speaker 1: like a local, because that's a big, big buzz term
34:04
Speaker 1: for a gap year people is learning to live like
34:06
Speaker 1: a local. To really immerse yourself, they say, get an
34:09
Speaker 1: international internship, like go work and you have to like
34:13
Speaker 1: get up at a certain time, you have to get
34:16
Speaker 1: on the subway. You have to find like a favorite restaurant,
34:19
Speaker 1: you have to go grocery shopping. Like That's how you
34:22
Speaker 1: truly live like a local in your gap years, to
34:25
Speaker 1: have responsibilities that the locals have, then you can genuinely
34:28
Speaker 1: understand it. Plus there's all, you know, tons of other
34:31
Speaker 1: benefits to like you get paid, um, you make business
34:34
Speaker 1: contacts in other countries, which can be very valuable. It's
34:37
Speaker 1: uh they they said that's the best best way to
34:39
Speaker 1: do it, And as an American, I'm like, yes, I'll
34:42
Speaker 1: bet that is the best gap here there is working. Well.
34:47
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the thing. There are certainly plenty of
34:49
Speaker 1: programs where you can volunteer and do a service here
34:52
Speaker 1: and those are great. Um, but you can also, like,
34:55
Speaker 1: you know, it's not selfish if you're an artist and
34:58
Speaker 1: you want to go live in in France and paint
35:01
Speaker 1: for a year and learn at the side of a
35:03
Speaker 1: mentor all those things are great, you know. It's it's
35:07
Speaker 1: whatever you think is going to enrich you in your
35:10
Speaker 1: future is what you should concentrate on. Yes, some people
35:12
Speaker 1: like take a year off to learn an instrument or
35:17
Speaker 1: to write a novel. Um. There's a lot of gap
35:20
Speaker 1: here programs that are geared towards things like helping the
35:23
Speaker 1: environment or helping science. Um to where you might be
35:27
Speaker 1: doing surveys underwater surveys of coral reefs to track like
35:31
Speaker 1: coral bleaching, or like I said, there's there's some programs
35:35
Speaker 1: where you combat poachers by finding snares and um and
35:39
Speaker 1: undoing them to stuff like that. So like there's a
35:41
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of training you can do where
35:45
Speaker 1: if you know, like you want to be an environmental scientist,
35:48
Speaker 1: you can actually go get field work to prepare you
35:50
Speaker 1: for your career down the road, or again find out
35:53
Speaker 1: that you actually don't want to be an environmental scientists
35:55
Speaker 1: who has to do field work. Um, so there's like
35:58
Speaker 1: this benefit of of not just going and spending a
36:02
Speaker 1: year in Abitha and doing as much ecstasy as you
36:05
Speaker 1: can stay alive before you go to college. That's that's
36:09
Speaker 1: how some people do it, I think, but they're like
36:12
Speaker 1: the go getters are like, no, this is what I
36:14
Speaker 1: think I want to do. I'm gonna go try it
36:16
Speaker 1: out firsthand and then go learn how to do it
36:18
Speaker 1: in college and tell my professors how they're teaching it
36:21
Speaker 1: wrong because I've been there and done it and I
36:24
Speaker 1: have life experience that they don't. Yeah, and like we said,
36:27
Speaker 1: there's not a ton of studies, but they have. We
36:29
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about some of the results. Um,
36:32
Speaker 1: there are other surveys that said, you know, they say
36:35
Speaker 1: you're gonna come back feeling very independent, more mature. Uh,
36:39
Speaker 1: You're gonna have more motivation to learn and a stronger
36:41
Speaker 1: interest in school. Um, I think that one you were
36:45
Speaker 1: talking about six said their a gap here confirmed their
36:48
Speaker 1: career path. And then one study out of Australia said, uh,
36:53
Speaker 1: if you were a gapper, then you outperform your peers
36:56
Speaker 1: in that first semester of college and overall have better
37:00
Speaker 1: college grades. Yeah. Um, Middlebury College in Vermont did a
37:04
Speaker 1: poll and found that their gap your students outperformed non
37:09
Speaker 1: gap your students by zero point one to zero point
37:13
Speaker 1: four on a four point oh scale, which is significant,
37:16
Speaker 1: especially zero point four, but even more significant that that
37:19
Speaker 1: effect lasted like all four years of college rather than
37:23
Speaker 1: just that first year. Right. And uh, it might have
37:26
Speaker 1: been the same study, but that was that one combined
37:29
Speaker 1: with the University of North Carolina that said it even
37:32
Speaker 1: helps post graduate. The post graduate get a higher rate
37:35
Speaker 1: of job satisfaction. Right, so it kind of set you up.
37:38
Speaker 1: It even said that in retirement you're happier. It said
37:43
Speaker 1: that when you die, your last words will invariably be
37:47
Speaker 1: thank god I did a gap here. Um. Here's the thing,
37:53
Speaker 1: though there are like it sounds like the perfect thing
37:56
Speaker 1: for everyone. I can see situations where if you are
38:01
Speaker 1: in a super tight knit senior class, and a lot
38:04
Speaker 1: of those kids are going to the same college. You
38:07
Speaker 1: might really feel like you've been left behind a bit
38:10
Speaker 1: if they all go to you know, State University and
38:13
Speaker 1: you're off in Ethiopia. Um. So I get that. Um.
38:18
Speaker 1: They They also say in this article from how Stuff
38:20
Speaker 1: works dot com about maybe getting a little rusty study wise.
38:25
Speaker 1: I don't really buy that. I've seen that elsewhere though.
38:28
Speaker 1: Really is that a thing. It's like, Hey, you might
38:31
Speaker 1: be learning you know, Swahili, and that's great, but what
38:34
Speaker 1: you're probably not doing math at the same time too. Yeah,
38:37
Speaker 1: I guess you can get little rusty. I just remember
38:39
Speaker 1: at that age, just your brain is so plastic. No,
38:43
Speaker 1: it's true, you know. Particularly, Yeah, you pick it back
38:47
Speaker 1: up pretty quick, I would guess, though, Although there is
38:49
Speaker 1: that whole thing, The whole reason that they use for
38:51
Speaker 1: um shortening or lengthening the school year, in shortening summer
38:57
Speaker 1: is the idea that you lose so many of the
38:59
Speaker 1: things you've lost ust over a long summer. So um
39:03
Speaker 1: and yeah, imagine a year. You know. There's also this
39:07
Speaker 1: whole scariness of like competing in the job market and
39:10
Speaker 1: can you really afford to delay entering the job market
39:13
Speaker 1: for a year. Yeah. But I mean, like there's a
39:16
Speaker 1: real that's a very American fear. Um, Like, no, you're
39:20
Speaker 1: setting yourself back. You gotta stay competitive, you gotta stay
39:23
Speaker 1: in the game. You can't just take a year off
39:24
Speaker 1: and go find yourself. Who taught you that, you hippie? Um,
39:28
Speaker 1: that's that's a real, like American thought. And so there
39:31
Speaker 1: are like real, I like fears among say parents of
39:35
Speaker 1: kids who want to take a gap Here. There's also
39:38
Speaker 1: criticisms of the idea of a gap year in general,
39:43
Speaker 1: from not not even necessarily people who are involved in it,
39:46
Speaker 1: just externally, people who say, this is something wrong with this.
39:49
Speaker 1: This stinks of privilege. If you ask me, Yeah, I
39:53
Speaker 1: get that, because you know, they're generally not cheap. Um,
39:56
Speaker 1: if you can afford to take a year off and
39:59
Speaker 1: do anything for a year where you're not getting paid,
40:02
Speaker 1: then there's got to be some privilege attached to that. Yeah,
40:05
Speaker 1: there's um that's one. Uh. There's there's another, uh charge
40:10
Speaker 1: of neo colonialism, where there's this idea of um, you know,
40:14
Speaker 1: Western kids finding themselves by dropping themselves temporarily in the
40:19
Speaker 1: destitute lives of other people around the world. Leave in
40:23
Speaker 1: twelve points exactly. They could walk out that day and
40:26
Speaker 1: they'd be fine. But you know they get to take
40:28
Speaker 1: a few selfies with some underprivileged children in Africa and
40:33
Speaker 1: post them and change their profile picture, and you know,
40:36
Speaker 1: what right do they have to go do that? UM.
40:39
Speaker 1: That's a big one that gets levied against it, and
40:41
Speaker 1: it's a big point of debate debate because it's not
40:43
Speaker 1: you can't just subjectively say that that's correct or incorrect.
40:48
Speaker 1: And you know, there are some elements of neo colonialism
40:51
Speaker 1: to it, and it can be done wrong. But people
40:54
Speaker 1: who defend the idea of gap years, especially you know,
40:57
Speaker 1: volunteering on gap year UM will say, no, there's there
41:02
Speaker 1: are a lot of very ethical gap year tour companies
41:06
Speaker 1: that take that stuff into consideration and won't put you
41:09
Speaker 1: in that situation where if you're going to help, you're
41:13
Speaker 1: actually going to help. And there's this famous UM I
41:17
Speaker 1: think it was posted on huff PO, a famous article
41:21
Speaker 1: UM called Little White Girls, Boys and volun Tourism, and
41:29
Speaker 1: the writer was a gap year student who basically was like, no,
41:32
Speaker 1: this is wrong, like this this isn't actually helping like
41:35
Speaker 1: the people who you know, we're helping with these community
41:39
Speaker 1: construction projects are having to go back and renail these
41:42
Speaker 1: two by fours because the people who are doing this
41:44
Speaker 1: are just teenagers who don't know what they're doing. We've
41:47
Speaker 1: never been trained to do this. So not only are
41:49
Speaker 1: we not helping, we're actually slowing things down. And apparently
41:53
Speaker 1: people who are the recipients of this aid from gap
41:57
Speaker 1: year programs are don't feel like they're in a position
42:01
Speaker 1: to be like, thanks, but no thanks thanks for the
42:03
Speaker 1: garbage house, right, you know, or thanks for your charity,
42:06
Speaker 1: but but go to hell. They don't feel like they're
42:09
Speaker 1: in a position to say that. So, um, there is
42:11
Speaker 1: this idea of Westerners, um uh pressing themselves on the
42:17
Speaker 1: lives temporarily of people who who are in developing countries
42:21
Speaker 1: that don't even necessarily want the help but but could
42:24
Speaker 1: still use it if it, you know, or don't feel
42:26
Speaker 1: like that they're in a position to say no, Yeah,
42:28
Speaker 1: I mean I would like to thank for every kid
42:30
Speaker 1: that's uh there for the selfies, there's another kid who
42:33
Speaker 1: may go on to not even go back to college
42:36
Speaker 1: and make that their life's work. You know. Yeah, I
42:38
Speaker 1: think it's probably a much higher ratio than that. I
42:41
Speaker 1: get the impression that the kids who actually go do
42:43
Speaker 1: the volunteering for gap year are actually starting to like
42:48
Speaker 1: dip their toe into a career in an NGO where
42:52
Speaker 1: they will go on and help people, and that they
42:54
Speaker 1: do take it very seriously. It's just the ethics among
42:57
Speaker 1: tour operators has changed and improved in the last couple
43:01
Speaker 1: of years from what I understand. Yeah, and if you
43:03
Speaker 1: think that you want to pursue life working for a
43:06
Speaker 1: nonprofit and doing this kind of work, like you should
43:09
Speaker 1: get out there and test the waters first before you
43:12
Speaker 1: make any big decisions, because it's not for everyone. It
43:15
Speaker 1: is very emotionally challenging and physically challenging stuff. And spending
43:20
Speaker 1: a year doing it can uh either way. If it's confirming, great,
43:24
Speaker 1: If it's confirming that you it is not for you,
43:26
Speaker 1: then that's great as well. Right. And the author of
43:29
Speaker 1: The Little White Girls Boys and Volunteerism, Uh, she said,
43:35
Speaker 1: stop and ask yourself a really important question. Will the
43:40
Speaker 1: project that you're working on be better off if you're
43:47
Speaker 1: they're helping? Yeah? Will they benefit from your presence? Uh? Huh,
43:50
Speaker 1: like what like would they have trouble completing it without
43:53
Speaker 1: your help? And if the answers yes, she says, then
43:56
Speaker 1: go for it, UM, But if the answers no, then
43:59
Speaker 1: maybe reconsider or what you're doing, or take the time
44:02
Speaker 1: to go learn that skill first so that you are
44:04
Speaker 1: actually helping. And it's the author's name is PIPA Biddle,
44:09
Speaker 1: which is maybe the most British name anyone's ever given
44:12
Speaker 1: their child. So if you are planning to do a
44:18
Speaker 1: gap year, UM, take some time to really think about
44:21
Speaker 1: how you want to do it, because there are myriad
44:23
Speaker 1: ways and directions that you can go. Think about what
44:26
Speaker 1: you want to get accomplished, whether it's learning how to
44:29
Speaker 1: paint better or volunteering or helping the environment, and then
44:34
Speaker 1: apply to college. You don't want to put that off.
44:36
Speaker 1: You want to go ahead and apply to college. So hey,
44:39
Speaker 1: you know what where you want to go? When you
44:41
Speaker 1: get back and be like we're talking about their they
44:44
Speaker 1: might have programs in place that can really help you
44:46
Speaker 1: out and really get structured about what you want to do. UM.
44:51
Speaker 1: And if there's high school kids listening, like this is
44:53
Speaker 1: especially important. And if you want to sell your parents
44:56
Speaker 1: on this idea, like don't just throw it out at
44:59
Speaker 1: the dinner table one night, Hey, what do you think
45:01
Speaker 1: about a year off? Like come with a plan in place,
45:05
Speaker 1: and like that is the stuff that will impress your parents,
45:08
Speaker 1: right exactly, because you can plan your own gap here.
45:11
Speaker 1: But whether you whether you take a planned tour, a
45:15
Speaker 1: pre plan tour, or a planet yourself, there does have
45:18
Speaker 1: to be structured. Else again, you end up in a
45:20
Speaker 1: bitha for a year um or or some people apparently
45:24
Speaker 1: will just sit around and watch Netflix or play video
45:26
Speaker 1: games for a year. That's the exact opposite of what
45:29
Speaker 1: you want to do. Like, you want to do something.
45:32
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be like the most highly charged,
45:35
Speaker 1: helpful volunteering um type of program you could possibly engage in,
45:41
Speaker 1: but it also you actually you want to do something
45:43
Speaker 1: that's enriching yourself at least. Yeah, I mean you can.
45:46
Speaker 1: You can walk around Europe with a backpack on your
45:48
Speaker 1: on your back just meeting people. Sure, I mean that's
45:51
Speaker 1: fine too. Just don't don't play video games ever. But well,
45:55
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I know that they get
45:57
Speaker 1: a bad rap unfairly a lot, but it's a it's
46:00
Speaker 1: it's code for laziness. Uh. If you are if you
46:04
Speaker 1: kind of focused your sights on something, try and find
46:07
Speaker 1: out as much as you can about the place, the
46:10
Speaker 1: program as in not just a little research on the internet,
46:14
Speaker 1: like see if you can talk to someone who's done
46:15
Speaker 1: it and really know what you're getting into. Like what
46:18
Speaker 1: is a day like UM building houses in a developing nation?
46:23
Speaker 1: Like what kind of hours am I going to be
46:25
Speaker 1: putting in? Am I up to that task? Because like
46:27
Speaker 1: we've been saying here, you're not only not gonna do
46:30
Speaker 1: yourselves any favor, but you're gonna be a burden on
46:33
Speaker 1: that program if you get down there and you're you know,
46:37
Speaker 1: extra weight. Yeah. So one of the other things that
46:41
Speaker 1: UM parents are probably very fearful of when their kids
46:44
Speaker 1: says gap here, UM. They they can cost quite a
46:49
Speaker 1: bit writing a big check. This how stuff Works article
46:52
Speaker 1: says thirty to forty grand I'm sure that it's more
46:55
Speaker 1: than that by now, because I think it's a few
46:57
Speaker 1: years old. UM. But there's ways you can offset that cost.
47:02
Speaker 1: There are gap year UM programs that you can engage
47:06
Speaker 1: in that are way cheaper than that. Some are free
47:10
Speaker 1: and some I think AmeriCorps or City Year or they
47:14
Speaker 1: might be the same thing. One of those guys actually
47:17
Speaker 1: pays you a stipend of fifty dollars at the end
47:20
Speaker 1: of the year. Which is I mean, if you think
47:22
Speaker 1: of it as a the pay for a year's worth
47:24
Speaker 1: of work, that's terrible. This is but this is um
47:29
Speaker 1: like it's mental help offset your tuition and say like, hey, hey,
47:32
Speaker 1: good job, way to go, you did it. Um. But
47:35
Speaker 1: there are but they don't charge you a dime. And
47:37
Speaker 1: some other places also will will give you free room
47:40
Speaker 1: and board, typically with local families. So not only are
47:44
Speaker 1: you getting free room and board as part of the program, UM,
47:47
Speaker 1: you're also immersing yourself in that culture by living with
47:49
Speaker 1: that family. Yeah. And sometimes universities even have programs where
47:55
Speaker 1: you can earn school credits UM that not necessarily that
47:58
Speaker 1: you can just take anywhere it that you can use
48:01
Speaker 1: for your specific university that you have pledged to attend.
48:05
Speaker 1: I saw somewhere though, that you want to be very
48:07
Speaker 1: careful with that because if you do a deferment program
48:10
Speaker 1: where you say, I'm applying to college, great, I got in.
48:13
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a year off for a gap year,
48:15
Speaker 1: and they say, Okay, some universities aren't okay with you
48:18
Speaker 1: taking uh credit courses at another accredited university, or you
48:24
Speaker 1: want to check with them first before you do that.
48:27
Speaker 1: I think that's it you got anything else? Got nothing else?
48:31
Speaker 1: Do it? Kids? Gap it up? Yeah, And if you
48:34
Speaker 1: took a gap year, let us know. We want to
48:36
Speaker 1: hear about it, how it affected you or didn't affect
48:38
Speaker 1: you or whatever. Okay, I agreed. Uh, if you want
48:43
Speaker 1: to know more about gap years, actually we can send
48:45
Speaker 1: you to how Stuff Works and you can check out
48:48
Speaker 1: this article on that site. And since I said how
48:50
Speaker 1: stuff works, it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
48:55
Speaker 1: this one. What am I getting all this one? Oh?
48:59
Speaker 1: Cockney rhymings slang. All right, We've got a lot of
49:01
Speaker 1: feedback about that, a lot of angry Brits, a lot
49:05
Speaker 1: of Brits with good senses of humor that knew that
49:09
Speaker 1: we were going to botch it. Probably I didn't see
49:11
Speaker 1: any angry Brits. Did we have any rings? I think
49:13
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of jokingly angry Brits. But this
49:17
Speaker 1: is from a Nazi said they're never angry. Nope. Hey,
49:21
Speaker 1: chaps love the episode, And like Josh, I knew immediately
49:24
Speaker 1: after Chuck tried his hand at Cockney that he sounded
49:26
Speaker 1: like someone famous. Michael Caine was a solid guest, but
49:31
Speaker 1: I was thinking Mike Myers as Austin powers. He says
49:36
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. Rhyming slang is wildly prevalent amongst
49:39
Speaker 1: cricket players in Australia. Back when I used to play competitively,
49:43
Speaker 1: it was at once a science and an art form,
49:46
Speaker 1: either developing or deciphering their slang being used by the teammates.
49:50
Speaker 1: By your teammates. It often took many forms, including traditional
49:53
Speaker 1: slang like butcher's hook for look, or he's had an
49:59
Speaker 1: absolute Barry meaning shocker, I e. A poor performance taken
50:05
Speaker 1: from the Australian comedian and actor Barry Crocker. It's a
50:08
Speaker 1: deep cut. The names of some of famous players being
50:12
Speaker 1: used as descriptions also, such as David Boone for tunes
50:17
Speaker 1: put on some David Boone's I guess David Boone is
50:20
Speaker 1: a famous cricketeer. Sure, as you might imagine, when you're
50:24
Speaker 1: all spending all day standing in a field and the
50:27
Speaker 1: Aussie sun, or watching others do that from the sidelines,
50:31
Speaker 1: you look for any activity to keep your mind engaged.
50:34
Speaker 1: Rhyming slang was a hilarious mainstay in that respect. Enough
50:37
Speaker 1: for me, keep up the good work, guys. You're my
50:40
Speaker 1: daily dose of a good old bubble. Bubble baths. We're
50:44
Speaker 1: a bubble bath for for Tom mcglasson in Sydney, Australia.
50:48
Speaker 1: Thanks Tom, that was a great one, much appreciated. Thanks
50:52
Speaker 1: to everybody who wrote in about the Cockney rhyming slanging episode.
50:55
Speaker 1: It did generate a ton of emails, didn't it It did, strangely.
50:59
Speaker 1: If you want to generate a ton of email for us,
51:01
Speaker 1: you can start by going to Stuff you Should Know
51:03
Speaker 1: and follow us on our social links there. You can
51:07
Speaker 1: also send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart
51:10
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
51:16
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
51:19
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
51:22
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.