If you’re going to travel, you should do it when you finish uni

If you didn’t have a gap year between college and uni and don’t take a year out after, you’re essentially going to spend 70 years of your life working with only a few weeks a year for holiday.

You’re never going to have those stories to tell. They might seem generic, but admit it, you want to ride an elephant in Thailand too.

Even if you’ve already had your gap year, you should take another one anyway. Uni changes you, it makes you a completely different person from the one who left home at 18. So taking a gap year gives you a chance to experience everything from a fresh perspective.

Experiencing culture

A year out doesn’t have to be all about travelling, you can spend it working at your student job whilst building up your CV with work experience in the field you want to go into.

You can explore cities across the world and discover not just where you want to live but the different opportunities the world has to offer you. Having a job in the city can be the dream, but who said it has to be in the UK?

A year out after uni shows that you aren’t afraid to try something new, you didn’t panic about getting a job straight away, instead you made a decision, showed that affirmative action that employees are always looking for. You chose to make sure you knew exactly what you wanted to do before applying for graduate scheme after graduate scheme.

So many years of education can get boring and you can become disillusioned, so if you want to do a masters or PhD, take a year out, raise some money, find some sponsors and come back to education refreshed and ready to impress the world with your academic skills.

Working on a gap yah is fun too

Even if you do just want to spend the year travelling after uni, take the opportunity to learn a new language, set yourself some goals to complete, learn about different cultures.The more you know about different cultures around the world and the better travelled you are will help with working for a global company.

When you go travelling at 18, you just do it for the fun, riding an elephant, taking a picture with a tiger, but at 21, you’re more ready to utilise the opportunity to make contacts. Everywhere you go you can find someone who will help you later on in life.

Or you can even do something as simple as becoming an au pair, you get experience looking after children, earn money, and experience a country from a locals perspective. It looks great on your CV too.

Basically, a year out after uni gives you memories of a lifetime. It means you go back into the working world refreshed and gives you the opportunity to boost your CV and make some international contacts.

You never know, you might even move and work abroad just because you found the right place on your gap year.