|
Calling
All Students
By
Rob Clement
You
have just finished your exams and you want to travel the world. But
where do you go and how do you make the right plans? Where do you want
to go? Europe, Asia, Africa or America all beckon. It depends how far
you want to travel, how much it costs and how much of a sense of
adventure you have.
You
could take a Gap Year? Stop being a school-kid and start being a
student. You will have a new level of responsibility for your own
education and job prospects. Look for opportunities abroad for a year
to see if you really want to teach (for example) or if it is not such a
bright idea anymore. Also you have the opportunity to try out the other
side of the world. Many Universities in the UK encourage their student
to take a gap year to broaden their horizons and take the plunge into a
more responsible lifestyle.
What
about three months in another continent? Where would you go? What do
you want to see? If may be that the old houses and the museums and art
galleries of Europe do not appeal, but what about where significant
events happened in the First or Second World War. You may have a
relative buried in Europe that never came home; maybe you have a war
medal and want to see where it was won. There are places to go, people
to see and food to be sampled. It will all be different, but you will
know if that restaurant back home really sells good English, French,
Italian or Austrian food as you have tasted the real thing.
BEWARE.
Yes I know Mom and Dad are nagging about drink and drugs and sex. So I
don’t need to continue the warnings. I will recommend that you either
go with an organised group or with at least one buddy (same sex). It is
just as cheap to have a twin-bedded room as a single room and you can
look after one another. The one thing that is definite is that either
you will come back from the holiday vowing never to see the person
again or you will have a very close friend for the rest of your life.
Are
you a good judge of character? Do you trust everyone? One of the things
you will need to have for the rest of your life is a good judgement of
people’s character. That is very necessary when you are having a few
beers in a local bar and you feel you have had enough and some guys
join you who want to be drinking something stronger. Have the courage
to say no. If you do not say no then you could easily find yourself
short of money when you wake up the following morning. You may think I
am being melodramatic. If you are in your first year in college them
find out from those second and third year students what their
experience has been of travel and if there were any bad experiences.
You will not have to search hard to find those who hit problems.
|
