21 Jul 2014

Remember that road map to life that you were given at a young age? You know the one, it reads: Go to school, go to uni, maybe travel on holidays and then get a job. It’s a pretty good outline of what you need to do, but the problem is that it’s the direct route, and we all know that the best road trips include detours.

I’m not here to preach at you on how you should lead your life, there are enough people who do that already, I’m just here to push you so that you consider all your options. Now with that in mind, I want to ask you a question.

How confident are you that you will get to see the world if you go straight to university?

Now this is a pretty straightforward question at first, you can travel during the holidays and then maybe for a year once you graduate. But here’s the problem, once you graduate and get a ‘career’ job then your chances to truly explore the world are drastically reduced. So many people constantly talk about travelling and then just end up getting a job and then five years down the road they have a mortgage and a kid on the way.

The older you get, the more responsibilities you have.

So how about this for an idea, why don’t people have longer gap years? Screw doing one year off before university, do three. Not only will you be able to explore the world and yourself for longer, but you’ll also mature as a person.

And if you mature as a person, then you’ll probably do better in university. Makes sense doesn’t it?

Perhaps in these three years you’ll figure out that what you wanted to study when you were 18 wasn’t right for you. If you start a standard undergraduate degree when you’re 21, you’ll graduate when you’re about 24 and you’ll still be pretty bloody young.

Be that mature age student, you’ll want to learn more than everyone else.

I went to university when I was 18 and I still regret it to this day, I rushed into a degree which I hated and I ultimately didn’t’ finish. Now at twenty-two I finally know what I want to do with my life, it took me about three years from when I left high-school to figure out who I was. I wish I’d spent those years travelling and seeing things instead of trying to hide my failures in a pursuit I hated.

And the best thing is, that if you didn’t get the marks that you wanted in high school, many universities have different admission standards for mature age students.  Not only are you giving yourself more time to choose the right course, you’re potentially giving yourself more courses to choose from.

Like I said before, I don’t want to tell you what to do, just remember that the popular way isn’t always the right way. There are so many other ways to chase your dreams.

If you’re look for, or no someone who needs that extra bit of help , check out the “Other Ways Into Uni”