Everyone should take a gap year - or should they?
Image by Sabrina Antcliff on Dupe Photos.
Should I go to UC like all my mates? I hear they have an amazing student mag. But... I also want to travel the world, because I can’t imagine being stuck in a two-hour lecture while scrolling Instagram and seeing golden hour “#AperolSpritzSummer” posts from Europe. Then again, I could just smash out my degree and be done with it. Ooo, but apparently Camp America is an experience of a lifetime... or maybe, I should just stay in my hometown and make bank.
When you’re fresh out of high school, it can feel like everyone has an opinion on where you should go and why. Trust me, I know.
I chatted to two students who took different paths. One reluctantly took a gap year, and one almost did, but changed his mind. Plus, we wanted to know whether the change from first-year fees free to final-year fess free had any impact on their decisions.
Quick recap: the Government changed the first-year fees free scheme, meaning a bunch of you didn’t have to pay for your first year at all. Now, in 2025, all first years either had to pay for their course fees or chuck it on the handy student loan. The upside? When you graduate, your final year’s fees will be covered.
No one is sure which one is better yet, but at least everyone can agree having one year paid for is a win.
First year Bachelor of Laws and Social and Environmental Sustainability student Rose shared she took a gap year due to health issues and ended up working full time at home.
“Lots of people were very sceptical about me coming to uni after taking a gap year and were very comfortable to say that openly to my face, which was quite a shock” Rose said.
In her gap year, Rose travelled the USA while working at Camp America for a summer, “which was amazing” she added.
“I would 100% recommend everyone taking a gap year, I learnt a lot about myself.”
Rose is a part of the first cohort who will be getting their final year paid for, which she feels is better, especially as she’s completing a double degree.
On the flip side, second year economic and management student Bradley was pretty set on taking a gap year after high school, but is grateful he came straight to uni instead.
“I was taking time to decide what I wanted to do before rushing into anything because it is an expensive first step to get into uni. But when I got into my preferred hall, I decided to go for it” Bradley said.
He said he had his sights set on a year of working, travelling and camp America, but finding out that his first year would be free was another pro to the list for uni.
“I enjoy the structure of uni and would not have gotten that doing a gap year, I might have even lost motivation to even come in the first place” Bradley said.
Being underage at the time, Bradley was worried he might miss out on making new friends at O week events, but said at his hall that was never the case.
“The good thing about going to uni is that you have 150 people in your hall around you just as confused and lost as you, but you are all working for a general purpose and that connects you” Bradley said.
Looking at the wider student cohort, Canta put out a form to gauge more students’ idea of taking time off before coming to university,
We found that 52.9% students from the survey said they still would have gone straight to uni regardless of whether the fees -free scheme covered first year or final year.
But among those who took a gap year, there was a split between those who loved the experience, and those who don’t regret coming straight to uni. However, 11.8% said they hadn’t taken one but wished they had.
It seems that team gap year and team straight to uni both have their pros and cos, but the right choiceultimately comes down to what you want to get achieve of those precious years out of high school.
Whether it’s making lifelong mates at uni, making money, getting that degree or seeing the world. Whatever choice you have made, I know it’s the right one.