Class of 2013 Reflects on Gap Year

While most members of the Class of 2013 are finishing their first year of college, a select few individuals chose to take a gap year to pursue experiences ranging from playing ice hockey to swimming in a river with elephants.Director of College Counseling Elizabeth Dolan said that a gap year can be an effective way for students to gain something that cannot be learned in the classroom. “A gap year is not a hole - a gap in one's life experience - but rather it is meant to bridge life ​experiences,” she said. ​Graduates taking a gap year participated in a myriad of activities but were united by a common purpose of self-exploration and pursuit of personal interests--as well as pure relaxation.Christian Ayscue ‘13 pursued an eclectic combination of activities, travelling throughout the United States and abroad. “During the fall, I went on a 77-day expedition in Baja California, hiking in the San Pedro de Martir Mountains and sea-kayaking and sailing on the Sea of Cortez,” Ayscue said. “In the winter, I spent a month and a half volunteering in Nicaragua, living in a home that had an income of 20 dollars a day, speaking a lot of Spanish, and surfing a good amount. Now, I am in a music program in Florida for a month. Then I head back home,” he added.Ayscue explained that after completing his years in Exeter, he wanted to take a break from the academic, athletic and social pressures of institutions like the Academy. “I thought that before I go to college the best thing I could do would be to do something completely different from what I did at Exeter and what I would be doing in college,” Ayscue said.Similar to Ayscue, Mariah Mastrodimos ’13 traveled around the world, funded by the Perrin Fellowship, one of the two gap year funds available in the Academy. Mastrodimos spent four months in Australia participating in wildlife conservation programs, two months in New Zealand working on a dairy farm and tramping, and is now spending her last month visiting temples and sanctuaries in various countries in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Singapore, Laos and Cambodia.Mastrodimos said that the gap year has allowed her to pursue her interests without restraint. ”I've just been completely free, doing what I love, wildlife conservation and traveling. It's so great to set your own schedule, and wake up every morning knowing that you can spend that day however you want,” Mastrodimos said. “You can just focus on doing what makes you happy, and I think that helps you grow intellectually. A gap year is a good opportunity to figure out what you do and don't like, so you'll be more prepared when you get to college.”Other graduates took their time to pursue specific goals for college. Colby Cretella ‘13 took a gap year in order to play collegiate ice hockey, playing in a junior hockey team to improve his skills. Along with playing hockey, Cretella spent the free time to plan for the future and study on his own.He felt that he has grown tremendously from the experience. “I found the free time that I had very helpful, as I was able to really get a much better idea of what I wanted to study,” Cretella said. “With all the free time I was able to self-educate by doing a lot of reading and research on things that interest me.”Ayscue also noted that gap years provided students with opportunities to immerse themselves in foreign cultures and distance themselves from distractions such as the media. “You experience life, rather than reading about things or on the internet. You get space from the addictive stream of entertainment that information technology injects into your life,” Ayscue said.His experience, he said, has led him to a newfound sense of self. “The one thing that I have learned in my living in other cultures and travelling alone is personal insight, which I think is absolutely indispensable, and is something that I did not have while at Exeter, where I lived to please other people.”Despite all the benefits of taking a gap year, there can also be some disadvantages, depending on what one expects from the year. Dolan said that the gap year experience may be less helpful when not taken as a personal choice. “The spirit behind a gap year is to use it for personal development. When students use it for personal development, it’s a great opportunity,” Dolan said. “[But] when students use it as a vehicle to re-apply to colleges, they don’t always grow in the same way. There are very few students who do a gap year because they did not get into a college.”Cretella said that there were inherent disadvantages to taking a gap year. “An obvious con would be that I wasn't able to immediately continue my education,” he said. “I really enjoyed my gap year and found it very useful but part of me definitely wishes that I had gone straight to school.”Mastrodimos, however, felt that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages, emphasizing that the opportunities that are presented during the year are incomparable to any offered during the first year of college.“I have absolutely no regrets about taking a gap year. I've loved every place that I've visited, and even the bad experiences are just opportunities to learn a little bit more about yourself and about the world,” Mastrodimos said.