Beginning with the Class of 2020, the College will encourage students who are interested in taking a gap year to look into paid opportunities through the Aspen Institute’s Franklin Project clearinghouse — a project that encourages students to do a year of service in between high school and college. This initiative comes in the wake of the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative, which announced the College’s partnership with the project.
The Franklin Project seeks a future where a year of service is a cultural expectation and civic rite of passage for every young American, according to its website.
The project started with a conversation between former Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal and retired news anchor Bob Schieffer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2012.
The College is among a handful of colleges and universities to partner with the Franklin Project. Other partner institutions include Tufts University, Tulane University, College of William and Mary, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California Hastings School of Law.
Part of the Franklin Project’s ideology is that if a generation of Americans devote one year to service, it will unleash a reservoir of human capital to tackle pressing social challenges, unite diverse Americans in common purpose and cultivate the next generation of leaders, according to its website.
The new partnership with the Franklin Project offers another resource for students who plan to take a gap year, dean of admissions and financial aid Maria Laskaris said.
Laskaris said that her team is working closely with the Center for Professional Development to ensure that this collaboration will be successful.
Nicko Gladstone ’17 took a gap year before college through a program called Where There Be Dragons, a similar initiative to the Franklin Project. He worked with 13 other students in India, where he said he was completely immersed in Indian culture.
“It was a self-directed gap year,” he said. “We’d learn about the culture but then have about ten hours to ourselves every day in India to figure out what we wanted to do with the day. I think that was the most valuable experience of the gap year. In high school and college, a lot of your day is planned -— but there, you could figure out what you want to do yourself.”
Gladstone also spent another portion of his gap year teaching English to students ages seven through 17 in Argentina through a program called Projects Abroad.
“Learning how to deal with the difference in culture and the different problems you face was great preparation for college,” he said.
Meanwhile, Patrick Kang ’17 took a gap year before college to focus on his family and his swimming career.
“It was a great maturation process for me,” Kang said. “I don’t think I had a strong grip on who I was right out of high school.”
Kang spent a lot of time with his family and even picked up jobs, such as working at Jamba Juice. He expressed, however, that he felt a shift in his friendship dynamics because all of his friends in the same year had a chance to experience college before he did.
“I would do it again though,” he said. “I got a chance to know more about myself, and I am more mature.”
Both Gladstone and Kang said they would recommend gap years to future high school graduates, adding that it highly benefitted them in preparation for college.
This initiative comes in the wake of the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative, which announced the College’s partnership with the project.
The Franklin Project seeks a future where a year of service is a cultural expectation and civic rite of passage for every young American, according to its website.
The project started with a conversation between former Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal and retired news anchor Bob Schieffer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2012.
The College is among a handful of colleges and universities to partner with the Franklin Project. Other partner institutions include Tufts University, Tulane University, College of William and Mary, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California Hastings School of Law.
Part of the Franklin Project’s ideology is that if a generation of Americans devote one year to service, it will unleash a reservoir of human capital to tackle pressing social challenges, unite diverse Americans in common purpose and cultivate the next generation of leaders, according to its website.
The new partnership with the Franklin Project offers another resource for students who plan to take a gap year, dean of admissions and financial aid Maria Laskaris said.
Laskaris said that her team is working closely with the Center for Professional Development to ensure that this collaboration will be successful.
Nicko Gladstone ’17 took a gap year before college through a program called Where There Be Dragons, a similar initiative to the Franklin Project. He worked with 13 other students in India, where he said he was completely immersed in Indian culture.
“It was a self-directed gap year,” he said. “We’d learn about the culture but then have about ten hours to ourselves every day in India to figure out what we wanted to do with the day. I think that was the most valuable experience of the gap year. In high school and college, a lot of your day is planned -— but there, you could figure out what you want to do yourself.”
Gladstone also spent another portion of his gap year teaching English to students ages seven through 17 in Argentina through a program called Projects Abroad.
“Learning how to deal with the difference in culture and the different problems you face was great preparation for college,” he said.
Meanwhile, Patrick Kang ’17 took a gap year before college to focus on his family and his swimming career.
“It was a great maturation process for me,” Kang said. “I don’t think I had a strong grip on who I was right out of high school.”
Kang spent a lot of time with his family and even picked up jobs, such as working at Jamba Juice. He expressed, however, that he felt a shift in his friendship dynamics because all of his friends in the same year had a chance to experience college before he did.
“I would do it again though,” he said. “I got a chance to know more about myself, and I am more mature.”
Both Gladstone and Kang said they would recommend gap years to future high school graduates, adding that it highly benefitted them in preparation for college.
