Instead of going straight to college, Katrin Schroeder went surfing.

She had just spent the past thirteen years at school in her native Essen, Germany, and she was too curious about the rest of the world to sit still within Germany's - or even Europe's - borders. Besides being unsure about what she wanted to study in college, "I was crazy for new experiences and for making new international friends, and I wanted to see the other end of the world," says the cheerful now 20-year-old.

The other end of the world was quite literally Australia, a country her parents had visited in the mid-eighties and raved about ever since. "[They] have infected me with their passion," says Schroeder. "They love the Australian way of life, especially the hospitality." With her sights set on scuba diving, exploring the expansive mid-country outback, and learning to catch a wave on the famous beaches down under, Schroeder convinced her friend Ellen Schober to apply for a special EU Working Holiday visa, pack a backpack, and go with her. On July 21, 2008, the two girls boarded a plane to begin their gap year in Sydney.

This desire to see the world has grown exponentially amongst young people, particularly those transitioning from high school to adulthood. Because of the freedom associated with this period in many students' lives - no spouse, no children, and no mortgage - it is a time when anything is possible. Around the world, students use this time as an opportunity to take a gap year: a hiatus from school to travel, work, intern or volunteer, either overseas or somewhere in their home country, and usually for six to twelve months. In the US, attending a university is usually considered the next logical step after completing high school, but over the past decade, more American students have been weighing their options - and not everyone is still choosing the college route right away.

Chelsea Claure, a 2009 SF State graduate, is one of these people. After graduating from high school in 2003, the Newport native was not enthused at the prospect of trying to get classes at the overcrowded Orange Coast College; at eighteen, she was more interested in being on her own. "I really wanted to know what it was like to work and be independent," says Claure. To the dismay of her friends and family, Claure did just that: for the next two years, she managed a First Class Pizza joint. "It wasn't until a couple years later that the allure of not going to school started to fade," she says. Switching her hours to part-time, Claure started enrolling in classes in 2005. She went on to earn two AA degrees from Marymount College and an English major from SF State.

The Gap Year's Roots

The history of the gap year is rooted in the United Kingdom, starting in the post-war 1960s when the baby boomers followed the "hippie trails" to India and Asia by bus, train, or simply by hitchhiking in order to explore the cultures in between. Their vagabonding across national and continental borders gave birth to the growing independent travel market, and with it, a number of travel companies. The UK's Tony Wheeler, for example, published the story of his and his wife's travels from London, through Asia, and into Australia in a travel guide called Across Asia on the Cheap - the first of more than 500 titles now published under his Lonely Planet brand. Around the same time, the Australians started their own travel companies: London-based Graham "Skroo" Turner founded Topdeck Travel and drove his first groups of paying travelers to Morocco, then to Kathmandu the following year, in a double-decker bus. Dick Porter reached out to the student and under-26 market with his own business, Student Travel Association - now simply STA - Travel, which has over 400 branches worldwide today.

Today, the gap year is seen as a "rite of passage" for young adults as they enter a world of maturity, responsibility, and taking care of themselves. While these are life skills a student is expected to learn during their university tenure, not all eighteen-year-old graduates are ready - or in Schroeder's case, willing - to build these skills in a college setting. For Jermaine Legg, an exchange student at SF State from the UK, the option of going straight to a university was on the table: he had interviewed at west London's Brunel University and held a letter of acceptance to study product design, but something was telling him this was not the path he was ready to take. "I wasn't ready to go to uni (university), [and] I didn't want to be shepherded through the education system," says Legg, 22. Instead, he took advantage of a gap year, spending most of it working at an insurance company in England to help fund his future college education at Brunel. Part of his earnings also paid for a month-long jaunt to Australia, where he visited friends and saw what he describes as "real life in 'Oz' (as it's referred to in Australia) instead of 'tourist Oz'. It was soul-searching; the best decision I ever made."

Taking a Break

Time off between school terms also serves as a much-needed break after at least twelve years of schooling and tough university entrance exams. For Fiona Shang, this break gave her more time to explore her interests outside academics. She had attended a boarding school in China with a regimented daily schedule: up at 6 a.m., study for an hour, break for breakfast, attend five morning classes, break for a nap and lunch, attend four afternoon classes, and stop for dinner. After their meal, she and her classmates would stay up and study until the 11 p.m. bedtime. For six years, this was the timetable Shang adhered to, so when she was denied from her top choice school - Beijing University - in 2006, she decided to take a much-needed break from academics. "Many of my friends were not happy in [college]," says the 22-year-old. "It's so competitive."

For the next six months, Shang traveled around China for with friends and family. Between trips to the mountains, the desert, and little nearby villages, she took salsa lessons, practiced painting and yoga, and spent time with her dogs. She also read a lot about American history and culture, which fuelled her next desire: to move to the States and complete her university coursework there. Because SF State offered spring enrollment, she applied and was accepted into their marketing program.

Before heading out to San Francisco, however, Shang was bit by the travel bug again, and this time she went south of the equator to Brisbane, Australia. There, she spent four weeks building paths through the rainforest with an organization called International Student Volunteers (ISV), for which she is currently a campus representative. "[We were] camping with wallabies and showering with giant spiders," laughs Shang, sounding surprisingly comfortable with her wildlife encounters in a country known for its native dangers. From Brisbane, she spent another six weeks backpacking from Cairns, snorkeling, rafting, and repelling her way down to Melbourne before heading back to the US.

Through SF State, Shang was able to spend two semesters studying business and French at the University Paris Dauphine. Her prime city location made it easy for her to visit several other countries throughout Europe - her favorites being Paris and Barcelona - and by couch surfing, she was able to meet many of the locals.

Shang is now back in San Francisco and is one year away from being the first in her family to graduate with a bachelors' degree. With approximately thirty national stamps in her passport, she has enough overseas experience to chronicle into a book. Her friends and family, fascinated by all her adventures, pushed her to publish her stories, and with their support, she is on her way to becoming an author. Her book, titled "Fifi's Journey," is due out in China by the end of the year, and it will contain four parts: studying and living in San Francisco; volunteering and backpacking through Australia; living in Paris; and traveling through Europe. The focus, however, is not only on traveling; Shang says she is using her stories to share her personal perspectives of all these separate cultures. Each country was "different from what I'd heard in China," says Shang. "I want to encourage them to explore these places for themselves; to be open-minded and hear international [viewpoints]."

This attitude - going out and meeting strangers, exploring diverse nations, and adapting to all kinds of environments - is the basis behind the gap year, according to Tom Griffiths, founder of the UK-based website gapyear.com. A year off helps you "get out of your comfort zone, see the world, and have fun," says Griffiths, whose own gap year was spent between California and Hawaii, Fiji, Australia and Southeast Asia. "It's a great opportunity for any young person who just wants to do or be something."

'The American Way'

Considering the difficulty students face in getting accepted into a university today due to rising tuition costs and colleges getting more selective with their application approvals, SF State's Student Outreach Director Dr. Frieda Lee doesn't see the gap year as an idea that will take off anytime soon. "The pattern we see is, a high school [graduate] travels for one to three months over the summer, comes back refreshed, and then goes to college," says Lee. "[The trip] is a graduation gift from their parents."

But, some American universities have successfully implemented their own gap year programs. Among these is Princeton University, whose Bridge Year program launched this year. Under its guidelines, newly admitted undergraduate students may formally accept their enrollment offer and then defer their first year to spend it abroad. Students are then placed with a host family in one of four pre-approved countries - Ghana, India, Peru or Serbia - where they spend nine months volunteering within the community, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in the country's language, culture and customs. Currently, there are twenty students participating in the program's pilot year, and although they only left in August, they are already broadening their perspectives of the world and altering those of their counterparts. In an excerpt from the Peru students' online journal, their presence has already impacted the population: "The local community, accustomed only to foreign tourists hiking their way to Machu Picchu, commented on how shocked they were to see foreigners, especially young foreigners, doing physical labor, mixing barro, or mud, and carrying bricks. We walked away from the experience knowing that we had on some level influenced the local community's perceptions of foreigners."

Once a student reaches the decision to forgo their first year of college, they face what is often the most challenging obstacle: getting their parents on board with the idea. Susan Martin, a Bay Area educational consultant who recently launched her own gap year company called Seize the Year, is well aware of this challenge."Parents still want their children in college because they think they don't have to worry about them, says Martin. They know where they're living, eating, and studying; in their minds, they're safe and comfortable."

Claure can relate. "My parents were less than thrilled about me decided to go on hiatus from college before I [had] even started," she says. "It was like I was letting them down, but I knew I wasn't ready for that part of my life." Between the UK and US, the perceptions of travel are much different. "In Europe, the borders are very transparent," says Martin, and the idea of taking a gap year is "rooted in tradition." While Claure's parents were hesitant about her plans to hold off on college, Legg's were fully supportive of his decision. "They understood that there was no rush, and that I should make the most of my 'carefree' youth while I could," says Legg. "I think a part of them enjoyed seeing me make the most of an opportunity they passed up."

Having a "Major" Impact

Over the course of twelve months, Schroeder and Schober shared many adventures: diving at the Great Barrier Reef, working at a resort in Perth, stargazing in the outback, and learning how to "smack the piss like a true blue Aussie" (translation: drink beer like a genuine Australian). On her own, Schroeder even ventured up to Darwin - the city where much of the movie Australia was set - to spend her last week working on an organic flower farm.

When Schroeder finally returned to Germany, she had already enrolled herself in life science courses at Westphälische Wilhelms Universität in Münster, northwestern Germany. Despite missing the sense of adventure she had enjoyed over the past year, Schroeder says she was much more confident about the journey ahead. "Australia was the most incredible year of my life," says Schroeder. "I finally knew who I was and what I wanted."
It is the kind of revelation that is music to Griffiths' ears. This experience "defines who you are," he says. "You're going to be you for the first time in your life."