obviously running up the big around the world ticket debt will be the fault of society afterwards........
had a chat with a local girl a few years back, she was telling me she was using the student hard ship fund to pay for a visit to her parents nature reserve in some far flung place. cant deny it pissed me off.
How do you generally imagine a gap year is financed? Are there any people who will give you one for free? I had a gap year. I went to California for a month, after earning the money for it working nights in a carpet warehouse. Then I worked helping to put up and paint scenery for the Habitat catalogue. Then I went to Switzerland to work in a kitchen and snack bar in a ski resort. Then I went to Spain to put up tents and clean camping equipment as rep. Pity. If I'd known about the swanning around the world on a free ticket scam I'd have done that (obviously).
There are always exceptions to any rule Fin. Always. You cant discredit a group base upon the actions of one. Otherwise we'd all hate everybody. It happens. Its also a tool bigots use to further their arguments. Because they have no argument other than their own bitter envy. I too met morons sponging at Uni, but the overwhelming vast majority were there to try. I went to Uni and it made me better. I paid my way and contribute back. So there's your balance. The biggest drug dealer at my Uni happened to be the son of the C.I of the Vice Squad in Hemel Hempstead. He flunked after 1.5yrs and is probably now lying in a gutter somewhere. Karma. Either that or he's now in the Drugs Squad.
so why the "gap" year? Go to school, study, finish, come away with a qualification....work! my niece did 3 years in Birmingham, then forked of to New Zealand via a variety of locations for a year.....before returning this month.... obviously has to now wait the usual 8 week school holiday for the next term to begin, the usual bull about picking fruit etc to survive....and now whinging about the 9 grand or so she is in debt..... by all means do a deal on a "student" loan really cheap rate over a zillion years, but use it for the education not the swanning around!!
My student loan only covers my tuition fees. Aren't they all like that? The money goes straight to the university, I don't even see it
Let your neice be young and free for a while. She will be a hell of a long time in the dull, dreary, soluless workplace slaving for the man. Let her live a little while she still can.
I'm confused here. I thought the "gap" was between school and university. At least it used to be. The advantage was that having had your nose in a book for 7 years, you got a chance for a refresh and remove it from books for a year. You also had to grow up more as a person and be taken out of your little cocoon. Travel and work broadens the mind. The idea that you go to school, then straight to uni, then straight into an 8:30 to 6 or 7 in order to become a good little consumer for the rest of your life seems to me to indicate very little imagination. Is this your suggestion for a happy and fulfilled life and maximising of potential?
Some take the year between end of 2nd and beginning of 3rd as the gap year, some also take that time as interns. Other like me just get the damn thing done.
Bizarre. Surely back in the day it was 3 years on the trot (unless something went wrong) or 5 if you were doing medicine or architecture or something. No, once you're at uni you should finish the thing or you might never get around to it. The "swanning around" should happen before or after, not during.
im all for living................just dont expect even demand that it should be paid for by society....
My daughter did an Erasmus Year at an Italian University for the second year of a four year language degree. I have paid all her living expenses and she has the tuition debt, which I will probably also pay off for her, but don't tell her just yet. I haven't begrudged her a penny of it.
Rarely will I defend government expenditure but education is an investment in the future. Some of it will pay off and some of it won't; and you won't know which is which until some time later.
and that you want in in that investment doesn't sway your opinion....as much as I'm on the outside...
