Ive recently been admitted to NTU’s ICLP Gap Year program and im super excited to hopefully get alot better at Mandarin while im there. Im a white guy born in America who’s been learning Chinese since kindergarten, but I hit a wall after graduating middle school, and im looking for a way to force myself to become more fluent.
I have also been accepted to a few American universities, and I want to study international relations long term, with a focus on US-China-Taiwan relations. I am mostly caught up on whether its better for me to take my gap year abroad at NTU, or to stay in the states and study international relations at UC San Diego.
My two options seem to be: 1, take the gap year and reapply to university again next year, or 2, spend my freshmen year in the states and then try and take a gap year my sophomore year.
I know that my admission to both NTU and UCSD are not guaranteed if I reapply next year, so im wondering if anyone has any insights into the merit of NTU’s gap year progam and its benefits, or maybe how useful the gap year would be to a future in international relations.
You got it, go do it imo. I’ve no idea about the IR part of things, but being able to read and speak this language will definitely be of academic value. One of the best things I did for my history degree involved my German language fluency, without which it would have been a nigh impossible task.
Plus, it’ll be way more fun to have the same folks around you for four years than to have all your friends leave a year before you. My ex girlfriend when I was in college had this situation, and she was a bit sad about some of her friends not being around.
No better time to do so. No commitments, no outstanding things to finish ala a degree. Go and have a nice year learning the language and come out way better than you came in.
Option 3, go to a US university that lets you do a year long exchange in Taiwan or China. That way you don’t delay graduation by a year. You might even get a tuition discount or scholarship stipend that makes this the cheapest option as well
I say do the gap year in Taiwan. You don’t want to waste precious time in college studying languages. It’s ineffective studying a foreign language in the US and there are so many more interesting courses that you could be taking instead.
Also, another year before starting college can be really useful. You’ve already been in school for a long time. Take a break and recharge.
Many people just out of high school end up wasting their first year or two in college celebrating all the new freedom. Get that out of your system in Taiwan first so that you have a better chance of settling into undergraduate academic life in a focused, thoughtful way.