Sometimes the best learning experience comes from outside the classroom. In the transition period between high school and college, some students choose to take a yearlong break to travel or simply to figure out where they want to go next.

Apart from the self-determined gap years, programs such as those recommended by the American Gap Association are structured like study abroad programs, with academic programs, food and housing accommodations.

While SU no longer offers its gap year program — and when it existed, it was geared toward international students — the university could help ease prospective and accepted students’ anxieties by becoming more involved in the decision-making process behind taking a gap year.

Advising new SU students in this way could create more opportunities by simply increasing awareness about gap years in the admissions process. There isn’t even a need to develop an entire new department; the initiative could just include gap year resources alongside those that already exist, like SU’s Office of Admissions. Simple moves, such as including it in conversations to touring students or including the option on SU’s applications, could get students’ wheels turning.

And whether in a brochure or a webpage, consolidating information on the logistics and finances of taking a gap year would allow students to make an informed decision on if it would be right for them. Having school-sponsored academic resources outlining the possibly of a gap year would also push back on the misconception that students who take them will waste a year or set themselves up for uncertainty.

Apart from traveling, some students take the opportunity to build up their finances and build their resume with work and humanitarian opportunities. Students who take gap years may also develop the valuable life skills that their peers stumble through post-graduation: balancing a budget, finding housing and learning how to navigate a professional workplace.

When students take a gap year, it is possible that they could arrive to school more prepared, driven and clear about what they hope to get out of college after walking across the stage. If SU put forth the effort to let first-year students know that it will welcome them back when their year of self-discovery is over, it could breed more successful and well-rounded students and alumni for generations to come.