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Service/Gap Year Programs

The Service/Gap Year Pathway may be an option for students who want to experience a semester or year of experiential learning, typically taken after high school and prior to a career or postsecondary education in order to deepen their practical, professional, and personal awareness.

Students who choose the Service/Gap Year Pathway must submit an acceptance letter as evidence of their plan to meet the Learn.Plan.Succeed. graduation requirement.

During a Service/Gap Year, students take time away from formal education to engage in planned activities that can help them decide what they want to do with their future. While students must define a plan for their Service/Gap Year to meet the Learn.Plan.Succeed. requirement, they can allow flexibility in their plan to pursue new areas of interest that may arise.

Types of Service/Gap Year Activities

Service/Gap Year activities vary widely, depending on the student's interests, what he or she wants to accomplish, and other factors. Primary types of Service/Gap Year activities include:

  • Volunteer/Service: Experiences that help students understand interdependence and allow them to give back
  • Career Exploration/Internship: Real-world work experiences that help students decide on a future course of study or career
  • Social Change: Experiences that enable students to participate in efforts to improve communities

Don’t think of a Service/Gap Year as a “break.” Consider how taking a Service/Gap Year will support your efforts to prepare for and to inform the next steps in your life journey. Among the many benefits of taking a Service/Gap Year are becoming a more well-rounded individual and finding purpose. Experts argue that your purpose, calling, dream job, point of happiness, pathway, or reason for being can be found where these four elements meet: (1) what you’re good at, (2) what you love, (3) what the world needs, and (4) that for which someone will pay you.

Office of College and Career Success

School Counseling and Postsecondary Advising

773-553-2108

773-553-3543 (Fax)

LearnPlanSucceed@cps.edu

42 W. Madison St.
Chicago, IL 60602