More Chattanooga area students making the most of their gap year after high school

Mac Waddell stands atop Cotopaxi, the second-highest summit in Ecuador. (Contributed Photo)
Mac Waddell stands atop Cotopaxi, the second-highest summit in Ecuador. (Contributed Photo)
photo Spencer Hodge stands over an A/C unit like the ones he worked with at Goins Heating and Air Conditioning during his gap year.

Planning the gap

Tips to prevent your child’s gap year from becoming just a gap:1. Make sure your child goes through the college application process. Not only does it provide skill development, it also ensures your child has a solid plan when his or her gap year ends.2. Talk with your child about his or her interests and passions to help determine the most productive activity or program for a gap year.3. Set specific, measurable goals for the gap year. What does your child hope to gain or accomplish?4. Decide whether your child will be able to work independently or if he or she will need a defined regimen.5. If your child is interested in a gap-year program, find out if it offers college credit and if that credit can be transferred to the school of your child’s choice.6. Consult a guidance counselor and do some research online. AmericanGap.org is a great place to start.

Finding a gap

The amount of gap year programs available to potential gappers is, honestly, quite overwhelming, and each program has its own unique appeal. Whether your child is looking to hike through Machu Picchu or sail from island to island, start your search at usagapyearfairs.org/programs, which offers a comprehensive list of some of the best programs across the country.

No one can tell you exactly why the "gap year," defined as the year-long hiatus some students take between their high school graduation and their first year of college, is gaining so much popularity in the United States.

Maybe it's because publications like The New York Times are calling the concept "a self-exploratory sabbatical." Or because Ivy League schools like Harvard are touting its success. Or maybe even because President Barack Obama's oldest daughter, Malia, announced her decision to take a gap year back in May.

Whatever the reason, the idea is taking the country by storm and becoming something parents and high school seniors consider while applying to college.

Jeff Kurtzman, director of college guidance at McCallie School, has seen an increase in the number of students interested in taking a gap year at the preparatory school and says there are two main reasons many choose to take a break. The first reason, he's found, is that some students don't feel ready for college and need some time off to mature and develop responsibility and self-sufficiency.

"Just because a child is 18 years old doesn't mean that they're ready to go to college," Kurtzman says. "It's kind of silly to think that all students will be at that same point at exactly the same time. One size doesn't fit all."

The second reason, which Kurtzman says he and his team have seen more and more at McCallie, is that some students want to chase a passion or do something enriching during the natural break between high school and college, whether that take the form of an outdoor educational pursuit like hiking the Appalachian Trail, a service-related project like joining AmeriCorps, or even an academic discipline like learning a new language.

"Some students really want an experience," says Brian Beckley, McCallie's associate director of college guidance. "They want something more before they start the rigors of college work. They really want to have a meaningful experience that they can draw upon and translate into their academic pursuit."

Though the gap year is a longtime rite of passage for many Europeans, and quickly becoming the same for some Americans, Chattanooga is a little behind on the trend, Kurtzman admits. Despite the lag, he has noticed the idea gaining traction in the area - especially among parents, who once approached the concept with apprehension.

"Parents are seeing it as a positive option, as opposed to seeing it as some kind of failure that their child isn't ready for college," Kurtzman says, adding that parents have also caught on to the gap year's financial benefits. "College is really expensive, and if a student isn't quite ready, then it doesn't make sense to go spend that money to have it go poorly that first year."

As the trend continues, colleges have also noted the benefits of gap years, and local institutions such as the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga offer students the chance to defer admission for a year to grow and learn about themselves outside the classroom.

"Having a student that's a little more in-tune with themselves and the expectations they have for themselves for success in college probably translates into higher retention rates and more satisfied students who can really come in and contribute to the college community in a positive way," says Beckley.

Gap years can have a profound impact on students' academic, emotional and social development, and their lasting effects can make all the difference on a student's subsequent college experience and the rest of his or her life.

Just ask Mac Waddell.

Sparking a passion

After four long years at Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts, hundreds of hours cooped up in a classroom and more tests than he could count, Mac Waddell was burnt out. The 18-year-old had managed to scrape by in high school, but the thought of doing it all over again at any university left him severely unmotivated.

"I just felt like if I went into college with that attitude, the trend would continue, and it was just going to be a waste of money," Mac says.

Adding more weight to his worries, the teen had no idea what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Should he try his hand in the medical field? Consider one of the sciences? Maybe. But he knew he wasn't going to find the answer by sitting behind another classroom desk.

So he chose to find out on the snow-capped volcanoes of Ecuador instead.

Drawing on his love of the outdoors, Mac put off enrollment to UTC and joined the Colorado Outward Bound School, an educational organization that builds its students' character and desire to serve through a plethora of adventure activities from whitewater rafting to mountaineering. Enlisting in the organization's "Rockies to Ecuador" course, Mac spent the next three months in his own special brand of heaven.

He and his fellow students trekked through the rugged Colorado backcountry, climbed the massive rock walls in Joshua Tree, California, and backpacked through the desert canyons of Moab, Utah, all before summiting the glaciated South American volcanoes.

"That course was a really good fit for me," he says. Not only was he able to learn several hard skills - like navigation, wilderness first aid and leadership - he was also able to do quite a bit of soul searching in the wild, which taught him to overcome his life-long struggle to be perfect by learning to accept failure.

With that mental block no longer holding him back, Mac has performed far better in college than he did in high school.

"I've kind of found that I can now maybe not do so well on the first [assignment] I get in a class, but then say, 'OK, this next time I'm going to try something different. I'm going to do a little more studying,'" he explains. "Rather than giving up, I just try something else to do better the next time."

When Mac returned home from his outdoor adventure, he landed an internship at Servants in Faith & Technology, a Christian nonprofit that teaches community development and self-help skills. There, he enhanced his global perspective even further by hosting youth and college tours through the organization's simulated rural global village and urban slum, where staff dressed and acted like people living in developing countries to show visitors how others live.

After seeing some of nature's most spectacular sights, then meeting people who lived in developing countries only to realize they were happy, Mac was a different man, and his family could see it.

"I could just tell that he was so much more mature, and he had this greater outlook on life," his 17-year-old sister Annie remembers. "He didn't really have a drive to go to college [before], I don't think, and now he's thriving in college."

"I feel refreshed, and I did much better in terms of really trying to learn the material," says Mac, now 19 and studying environmental science with a focus on conservation of natural resources and biodiversity at UTC.

Gapping from home

Spencer Hodge can relate to taking a year for personal growth, though his experience did not take him to the icy peaks of South America.

Spencer, like several of his peers, had it easy in high school. A devoted athlete in love with playing basketball and baseball at Sale Creek High School, he often traded his time with a textbook for more time on the field, but still somehow made A's. When the teen graduated and enrolled in Lee University, he thought he would coast by just the same.

He thought wrong.

College was an immediate struggle for the b-ball-loving freshman, who couldn't take his mind (or body) off the court long enough to do homework. But he didn't notice how weak his academic skills were until he strolled into class one morning and realized he'd totally forgotten a huge assignment due that day.

"That did me in real quick," Spencer says. "I got in way over my head. My maturity level wasn't there yet."

The problem, Spencer discovered, was that he hadn't developed a healthy work ethic. So instead of burning tuition money, he decided to leave Lee and do what he should have done in the first place: Take a gap year.

With numerous gap-year programs at his fingertips, Spencer could have easily explored the deserts of South Africa or wandered the Amazon Rainforest. But since it was his work ethic he was trying to improve, he decided what he needed to do was exactly that: work. That led him to Goins Heating and Air Conditioning in Graysville, Tennessee.

When Spencer started as a full-time employee at Goins, he expected it would be an easy paycheck. But he quickly discovered it would not be that simple. The job had him crawling under houses, working in blazing-hot attics and studying air flow like he was studying for an exam. And then there was his least favorite task: learning to wire A/C units, which came with the risk of serious electrical shock.

On days when all he wanted to do was stay home and play ball, he found he couldn't because there was always a job to be done, and he was responsible for completing it by the end of the day.

"It was a struggle," Spencer admits. "It took me a while to really develop that mentality. [It took] having those people around me to say, 'Stop goofing around. Let's get work done.'"

Soon, the teen who once couldn't commit to a homework assignment became a lead man on jobs, responsible for installing and maintaining A/C systems for clients.

Kurtzman notes that a gap year does not have to involve a "prepackaged" program like the ones gap-year organizations offer.

"I really think a quality gap year can be done inexpensively," the McCallie counselor says.

Spencer agrees. His experience on the job helped teach him to focus on the job at hand - an invaluable skill that Spencer knows will make a huge difference when he returns to Lee this fall to complete his degree in exercise science.

Seizing an opportunity

Though a gap year can be a godsend to students unprepared for the next phase of education, even highly motivated students stand to benefit from time off.

This is the case for Annie Waddell, the younger sister of Mac Waddell.

Annie is currently gearing up for her own gap year when she will travel to Asia with Adventures Cross-Country, an organization that provides teens with service and adventure programs in exotic locations. During her 90-day expedition, Annie will work with biologists in Thailand to rehabilitate elephants, gain scuba certification to help restore coral reef in Koh Tao, teach English to high school students in urban areas and install clean-water filters in Cambodia homes, all while taking time for a few amazing activities, like camping on the Great Wall of China.

The experience is sure to change her life for the better. But unlike her older brother Mac, who completed the Outward Bound School to help bolster his college performance, Annie has always had her academic drive.

"My whole life I've been looking forward to going to college," Annie says. A graduate of Collegiate High at Chattanooga State Community College, she earned a decent amount of college credits before she got her high school diploma. Forgoing all the "normal" teenage experiences - like football games and pep rallies - for scholastic success, she was even able to graduate from high school a year early.

Still, the 17-year-old decided it was time to put on the brakes. Despite her longing for higher education, Annie wanted to take advantage of the natural stopping point between high school and college.

"I don't think I'm going to have another opportunity to go to Asia in my life, most likely," she says, adding, "You never hear of anybody saying, 'Gosh, I wish I hadn't have taken my gap year.' Even if you did well in high school and know you're going to excel in college, it's not going to hurt to take a year off and get some really great experiences."

Annie's desire to spend a year serving and expanding her worldview despite her excellent academic record squelches one of the biggest misconceptions about taking a year off: that it's only for struggling students.

"There's not just one student who fits a gap year. It's a pretty diverse group of backgrounds of students who are interested in gap years," explains Beckley.

But for all the gap-year hype, Kurtzman stresses that it is not a good option for every student. Though many may thrive out of the classroom, others might need that structure or might benefit from continuing their education right away.

"Try to keep the focus on what's best for the student," Kurtzman advises.

Because each student is different, and while, like Annie, they might not all know what they'd like to do after college, they often know exactly what it is they want in the moment.

"I just want to experience as much of the world as I can," Annie says.

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