Borderfire Report

Warner Todd Huston
Is our children learning? It seems they are learning at least one thing; their college supports Barack Obama. Students at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, are being presented with a new opportunity to indulge in what is being called a “gap year.” An idea popular in Europe, the “gap year” is a year taken off from studies between high school and the first year of college. That year is supposedly spent traveling or doing volunteer work. To regulate this, the college gives credit to the students for approved “gap year” activities, one of which is volunteering for the Barack Obama presidential campaign. No mention of allowing the same benefit for a volunteer to John McCain’s campaign is made, naturally.

    Projects of the past year and the coming fall include study in Florence, Italy, and London, volunteer work on Barack Obama’s campaign, travel to Israel, and a mountaineering course. The school stays in contact with the students during the fall, helping them maintain ties to the college, register for classes, and hosts a special orientation for them before the spring semester begins

To explain what this time wasting “gap year” is, an article from the Patriot-News reports that Europeans love this concept. The paper says that, “…slowly but surely, an old standard in European education is starting to catch on across the United States, giving some college-bound students an opportunity to catch their breath.”

    Popular throughout Europe, gap years allow students the chance to defer their admission to university, and take a semester or a year off in between high school and college. With the time off, students travel, undertake volunteer projects abroad, or embark on working holidays. In 2007, 7 percent of university-bound U.K. students opted to take a gap year, according to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Services.

    “We’re more isolated, and we may not value learning other languages and cultures in the same way,” she said. “We have two weeks vacation here; over in Europe, they have six.”

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