Gap year before post-graduate study?

elliew200118

Hi!
I am currently about to go into my final year of my undergraduate studies (Hispanic Studies with Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan language studies), and have been thinking about doing a two-year accelerated masters course in Speech and Language Therapy as this is something I am interested in pursuing.

I have been debating whether to take a gap-year after finishing my degree as I want to take some time to travel and work abroad, however, I have a few concerns:
1. The price of the course may go up (from the 2023-2024 course to the 2024-2025 course it has gone from £11,000 to £11,800 per year), so I am worried the price may go up even more. The student loan available for this course is only £9250 per year so I’d have to find the extra £2000+. (It is different to a masters loan as it is under the allied health professions, so I could get another under-graduate loan)
2. My age. I would be 24/25 by the time I started working as a Speech Therapist, but with the gap year, I would be 26+. I know age should not matter, but I still feel the societal pressure to get a career as soon as possible, and earning my first ‘proper’ wage is also important to me.

Sorry for the long explanation, but does anyone have any advice or has anyone been in the same situation? On the one hand, taking a year or two off to travel/ work abroad would allow me to take a break from education and explore new places, but on the other hand, I feel that it may be better to study first, and travel during my university holidays or once I’d finished studying? Would you recommend taking a gap-year or continuing in education?
Thanks

Reply 1

University of Kent

Official Rep

Original post by elliew200118

Hey,

In terms of your age, I was actually the only person on my master's course under the age of 25. I also know this is the case for a lot of master's courses! So it seems that a lot of people tend to have a gap between undergrad and master's; I definitely wouldn't worry about that aspect! There is definitely a lot of pressure to get the ball rolling in your early twenties, but for most people this really isn't the case! :h:

I guess the main thing then to consider is the price, however, if you're really keen on travelling and working abroad, you could use that opportunity to save the additional money you need (obviously you then need to also account for other costs such as accommodation). On the other hand, I'm currently doing a PhD but haven't taken any breaks since undergrad, but am now looking at travel opportunities, so I would say it is still possible post-masters! But, if you're desperate to do it now and you could account for the likely increasing costs of the master's degree, then I would say go for it! You may also find after travelling/working abroad, that you change your mind about going back to uni - a couple of my friends who travelled in between undergrad and master's actually ended up staying abroad, so you never know where you may end up! :biggrin: