Spaces and Exchanges: why a gap year is an exchange of services and cultures?

Spaces and Exchanges 

Hello, I’m going to talk about the notion “Spaces and Exchanges”. This notion deals with the geographical and symbolic spaces that all societies occupy, and the interactions between men and different societies. The different spaces of the world are nowadays more and more connected to each other. For this, crossing the borders has become easier and faster and new modes of exchange are emerging. An exchange is about making a reciprocal change from one thing or person to another, therefore, the exchanges can relate to very different domains, for example, it can involve the buying and selling of products between several countries. It is also worth mentioning human exchanges, that is, tourism or immigration.                                  

First of all, I would like to define what a gap year is. A gap year is a year off taken by students to engage in humanitarian projects. It’s generally a year after high school, in order to have experience in another country before starting graduate school. 

The document we studied in class show that gappers bring a lot of advantages to people in other countries. This is the case of Jennifer Davies, who helped students in difficulties by      offering them one-to-one tutoring, she also gave them lessons in cooking, sewing and mathematics. Gappers can be volunteers in environmental projects as well, this is a great way to    contribute to the preservation and future well-being of our planet. For example, they can control deforestation in the rainforests, or work on marine conservation. 

Taking a Gap Year brings a lot of benefits to gappers too. In the audio recording that we     listened to in class, the young woman said that mentioning her gap year in France in her resume has always gotten her noticed in interviews and job applications. Because, going abroad takes a lot of courage, we need to be brave, and this is a proof that we're willing to take on a challenge, to be open to living in a different culture. Also, it helps you perfect another language, which is not your native language. Going abroad brings other advantages as we saw in the video published by Education First, for example, it can help you reach new goals, invest in your future, and make new friends. [pic 1]

In conclusion, we can say that having a gap year is a positive and meaningful experience.      A gapper can broaden his or her horizons by sightseeing, by crossing cultures and by meeting people from different backgrounds. He can bring them a great help, and the closer he gets to people, the less prejudiced he will have. Also, volunteering abroad is a good way to learn honestly, tolerance and how to share with others.

I think that the participation to this kind of projects through a gap year can be an amazing experience, because we can experience life as it’s lived by the local population and we’ll achieve great personal satisfaction knowing that we made a real difference. Also, volunteering abroad is a good way to learn honestly, tolerance and how to share with others. [pic 2]

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