As the competition for good grades to get a decent place at uni grows, the last few years of school life can be a hard slog.  By the end of it you will have had three consecutive years of intensive exam study, from GCSE to AS then A levels.

While it makes sense to secure a place at university immediately after A levels, the number of students then deferring their places for a year has been increasing steadily for some time now.  Taking a break to do something completely different and refresh yourself before you continue with study at university can be an excellent idea.

More and more employers and most, but not all, universities are recognising the value of a gap-year as long as there’s some structure to what you do.  That’s not to say a whole gap-year has to be stuffed with worthy projects.

You could create a mix and match programme that allows you to maybe join a trek, pursue a volunteer project in an area that interests you or take a course in something that you had no time for at school and fit in some independent travel.

Don’t think that you need huge amounts of experience for volunteer projects. You need to be able to get on with people and be reasonably flexible, but beyond that you can probably do a lot more than you think you can on projects like teaching basic English to street kids in India, which often involves making learning fun, using things like songs you know, craft or drawing abilities and basic ABC.

Helping out with conservation projects often involves a lot of basic tasks like collecting and recording information, cleaning out animal pens, showing visitors around – simple tasks that are essential for many projects that rely heavily on the extra help volunteers can bring.

Maybe you could gain work experience on an internship in the field you eventually want to pursue as a career – and that can only be good for both being focused on your university study and for your CV because you’ll get first-hand experience of work culture and learning to organise your time as well as specific job skills.

Or you could do something that involves training – such as ski instructor or snowboarding courses. Then in the future you’ll have a qualification you can use to pay for future travel either during the long uni vacations or afterwards.

Whatever you do you’ll learn and mature. You’ll learn about different cultures and about how to cope with life far from home.

The fact that you’ve set yourself goals, organised and successfully completed a year’s activity, whatever it is, can only give you brownie points for your initiative and organisation skills.

A gap-year can be a life-changing experience that you will remember forever and bring you many new friends.
So if taking a year out appeals to you how do you go about it? The essence of a good gap-experience is planning and preparation.

Stage 1
www.gap-year.com and, in more detail, the gap-year guidebook guide you through the whole process, but here are some things to consider first:

• Where do you want to go?
• What do you want to get out of it?
• Do you want to mix and match activities or stick with one project?
• How much money will you need?
• Will you be going alone or with a friend(s)?

A good start is to make a collection of pictures that have attracted you, websites that have interested you, odd comments that have rung a bell. It will help you organise your thoughts and gradually clarify your idea of what you want to do.

Next step is to work out roughly what places you want to visit and for how long, then look for gap-year/activity providers who can help you.

That will give you some idea of the costs involved – and may mean you need to revise your timetable if you’re going to fit in enough paid work to save the money to go do whatever you want to do.

Another option, though, is to go for an activity for at least part of the time that will actually pay you as you go. There is any number of options from au pairing to summer camps in America to seasonal farm work in Europe to casual jobs in Australia. Or how about working in a ski resort as a chef or chambermaid?

Stage 2
Once you have all that sorted you’ll need to organise all the right paperwork.  Key things here are:

• passport;
• work permits;
• country entry visas;
• possibly a drivers’ licence if you think you’ll need it;
• insurance;
• any inoculations you might need to protect you from health hazards.

You can get many of the details you need from the UK embassies of the countries you plan to visit. Also many organisations that help you organise your project will guide you through the paper jungle.

Stage 3
As the world becomes more volatile environmentally and politically you should find out as much as you can about the safety, the customs and culture of the countries you plan to visit.  The more you know and understand about people’s sensitivities and the general economic and political situation the better the experience will be for you.

The Foreign Office website (www.fco.gov.uk) has good, up-to-date information about countries around the world and in some instances it might be wise to take a basic travellers’ survival/safety course.

Having said that, there’s no need to be paranoid about the dangers of travel or how to stay safe. If you take commonsense measures like carrying duplicates of essential papers, carrying small change of the local currency and not looking too obviously wealthy, not wearing clothes that will shock local people and not being persuaded into risky locations or behaviour there’s no reason why you should come to any harm.

Remember, that whatever you plan to do there are many people and organisations who are there to help you and it’s always a good idea to talk to other people who have already done it.

You can use the message boards on www.gap-year.com and providers’ websites to find them but many gap-, voluntary project and trek providers will also put you in touch with people who have already been on their projects and will include pre-departure briefing as well as some in-country support.

Many, but not all, of the good ones are members of the Year Out Group (www.yearoutgroup.org) an association which promotes the benefits of a well-structured year out and promotes models of good practice for the gap-year industry.

Convinced?
The above is a basic overview of the benefits of taking a gap-, the things you need to consider and how to go about it.  There’s much more on www.gap-year.com and even more still in the the gap-year guidebook, including lists of contacts to help you whatever you choose to do.

So go on, go for it and enjoy yourself planning then having the experience of a lifetime.

Alison Withers is editor of the the gap-year guidebook (published annually).

For more information log on to www.gap-year.com

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