Gap year programs provide room for students to take a year off before college and branch out from what they know; they provide room for exploration, the opportunity to study in new and exciting places, and a chance to devote your time to something that can change a person’s life, whether that be you or someone else. Here, there is a compilation of gap year programs and resources for students with interest in seeing the world in a new way.
Rustic Pathways: offers international, three month long programs with four primary focuses: service and exploration, Spanish language immersion, rustic roadtrip, and rustic internship.
City Year: City Year offers urbanly-based programs across the US, focused on putting volunteers in the inner city so as to asist communities with high poverty rates in improving the educational experience of their students.
World Learning: culturally oriented, international programs (many south american opportunities, some in australia, some in europe, some in africa and asia) that last a full year.
Safe Passage: Based in Guatemala, Safe Passage offers school building and educational leadership programs to post-graduation students.
WWOOF: Offers agriculturally based programs all over the world from people in these countries looking for help or assistance. This is a full year program that enriches you in the agricultural life of a foreign country.
Aspire by API: Offers gap year and summer programs in a few countries, mostly language and liberal arts based, but also offers cultural studies and community service opportunities.
Saint Anne: Offers Canadian French language immersion programs, majority of which are summer programs lasting only a few weeks.
Omprakash: Offers a wide variety of opportunities for gap year students across the world, many of which are structured as actual jobs or internships, such as teachers assistant or photographer. Prices are wildly cheap in comparison to many other programs (some are $10 a day, many all you pay is airfare.)
Gap360: Offers lots of gap year options, from exploring to volunteering to interning to working an actual paying job. The programs range from a few weeks to a year, and include tons of countries over six continents.
