How to Maximize Your Gap Year Through Continuous Reflexive Learning

Taking a Gap Year is a great way to experience new things, you wouldn’t otherwise have time for later on. The things you do, and learn throughout this period can provide you with a wealth of knowledge you can harness for years to come, if you know how to use these experiences to their fullest.

Before you begin your Gap Year, it might be a good idea to consider joining a Gap Year program. This way, you’ll make sure that you have a sound plan when it comes to how you’re going to spend your time during this period.

Taking a full year off before you go to college might seem like a very long time. But as a learning experience, it’s relatively short. Think about how long it takes to become a certified nurse, for example. More than that, the information you will be receiving will be more or less unstructured. You won’t have a teacher besides you, explaining what everything means, and what you should be looking for. That’s where reflexive learning comes in.

What is Reflexive Learning?

Reflexive learning is much more than just accumulating information, and being able to reproduce it later. That’s basically the traditional, didactic mode of teaching. A professor stands in front of the classroom, and talks about their subject, while the students take down that information, and learn it, in order to pass their exams. However, rarely do you get a chance to think about how you can apply that information in real life situations. And rarely do you get a chance to find new ways of combining those bits of information, to reach new ideas.

A reflective learner takes charge of the learning process. Apart from gathering information, you’re also responsible for putting it together, and then assessing the results of this process. More and more colleges are opting for this mode of learning, even when it comes to training their own staff.

It helps you become more aware of your understanding of the world around you, your biases, and preferences. In the long run, it can help you become more efficient in your learning process, and more quick to adapt to new situations. Reflexive learning should become a habit, to get the most out of your learning experience, no matter where you may stumble upon them.

Reflexive Learning Takes Practice

This type of learning requires a lot of practice for it to become effective. Encountering different cultures is known to be a trigger for reflexive thinking, because it shed new light on many things that you are accustomed to, and tend to take for granted. Using your gap year as an opportunity to travel, and discover new cultures can be one of the most life changing experience you can have.

Observing the way other cultures understand and deal with similar problems provides you with an opportunity to think about the ways in which you deal with certain issues, and how much of that practice has to do with your culture, rather than your own inclinations. You discover ways of dealing with certain situations that are much more efficient, because they will feel more natural to you.

Training yourself to reflect upon your personal experiences is also going to give a head start when it comes to college. For teachers, it may quite difficult to find the perfect method to deliver their classes so all of their students benefit from it, when they have to deal with dozens, or hundreds of people.

Get to Know Yourself & Others

The skill you will have gained during your Gap Year is going to help structure information in such a way as to help you retain it, and use it later on. And the experiences you will have gained are going to provide you with something to which you can compare and contrast the information you receive in college.

And use this time to learn about how the world works, and more importantly, about how people are. Really get to know all the people you meet along the way. And don’t just focus on what they have to offer. Think about yourself, and how you relate to them as well. The truth is, you’re never going to be able to understand someone fully. But you have a good chance to know yourself in depth. And the best way to understand things about you is in relation to others.

After your Gap Year is over, you shouldn’t let all of those memories, and teachings gather dust. Any encounter can be a learning experience, as long as you use it as such. The only time wasted is the time not spent learning something new. Take every opportunity you get to challenge your preconceptions, and make reflexive learning a life-long habit.

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About the author: Amanda Wilks is a Boston University graduate and a part-time writer. She has a great interest in everything related to career-building advice and entrepreneurship and loves helping people reach their true potential.