{"id":1121,"date":"2011-10-06T09:40:49","date_gmt":"2011-10-06T13:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2011-10-06T09:40:49","modified_gmt":"2011-10-06T13:40:49","slug":"career-services-offers-gap-year-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2011\/10\/06\/career-services-offers-gap-year-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Career Services Offers Gap Year Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pete Robbins ’12, Bachelor Editor<\/em> – As part of the first Wabash CareerFest, Assistant Director of Career Services James Jeffries, Assistant Professor of Psychology Eric Olofson and Spencer Peters \u201914 led an information seminar Wednesday about gap years.\u00a0 The presentation divided gap year programs into six categories: travel, fellowships, entrepreneur, art, teaching and nonprofit.<\/p>\n

Peters explained some of the things students can accomplish with a gap year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know what you want, this is when you can further your progress toward getting there,\u201d Peters said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd if you don\u2019t, the gap year is when you can find out what you want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeffries elaborated for those who are undecided about their future careers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t know what you want to do as a career, that\u2019s fine,\u201d Jeffries said.\u00a0 \u201cThere are lots and lots of options for you, even if you haven\u2019t even figured out roughly what you want to do.\u00a0 But there are also some very unproductive things to do with your time.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to have it all figured out, but you should move forward prudently as you figure out your plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olofson shared his experience with Americorps, part of the travel category, with those in attendance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough Americorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), I created a mentoring program in Morehead, MN and made sure it was sustainable by connecting it to a curriculum,\u201d Olofson said.\u00a0 \u201cBut I\u2019m also an advocate for Americorps not just for career building.\u00a0 For those who are thinking, \u2018I\u2019m not ready to start my career, and I know I won\u2019t have another opportunity to do something like this,\u2019 Americorps is perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olofson explained that through Americorps, students can get their loans deferred, as well as receive $5,200 of education credit which can be applied to their loans.\u00a0 He also offered guidance for those students interested in fellowships, as he is the Chair of the Graduate Fellowship Committee.\u00a0 He mentioned the prestigious Fulbright program in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a passion for something that doesn\u2019t fit in a traditional academic program, fellowships are a great way to go,\u201d Olofson said.<\/p>\n

Jeffries also urged students to look into post-graduate internships, which are popular with many companies given the poor economy, particularly in sectors like advertising.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pete Robbins ’12, Bachelor Editor – As part of the first Wabash CareerFest, Assistant Director of Career Services James Jeffries, Assistant Professor of Psychology Eric Olofson and Spencer Peters \u201914 led an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}