Taking a gap year is becoming increasingly popular amongst Menlo students. Some students feel they need to take a step back after their academically rigorous high school experiences, while others hope to gain valuable real world experience by travelling and immersing themselves in other cultures. Photos courtesy of: Coco Gray   

By Sophie White

Coco and Elena Gray, two members of the class of 2016, deferred their college admission until the 2017-18 school year, in lieu of a gap year. One of their main reasons for taking a gap year was a desire for a change of pace and a chance to explore various interests. “I felt like I was on the fast track towards adulthood,” Coco Gray said. “Menlo students are lucky enough to be able to consider the future […] and their later education, but […] I [felt] I was entirely missing out on the experiences that surrounded me everyday, [and] I couldn’t fully immerse myself into interactions and thoughts.”

To kick off their gap year, the Grays travelled to Tanzania. “We visited [Tanzania] about five years ago with our family [and] the locals we met [there] had the [strongest] impression on us,” Coco Gray said. While there, the Grays worked at a number of different schools. In Tanzania, there’s a large discrepancy between students who learn English in primary school and students who don’t. The students who learn English in their earlier years often come from private schools and tend to be more successful later on in life, while students in public school typically don’t learn English and don’t see the same success as their private school counterparts.

“The first school we worked at is trying to help this issue by providing an English-based, private primary school education to impoverished children, in hopes to improve their results in secondary school,” Coco Gray said. The Grays and the rest of the volunteers in their program noticed that this school in particular lacked basic classroom materials. “The volunteers decided to buy each classroom enough pencils for each student to have one, and the kids started crying [because] they were so overjoyed and excited,” Coco Gray said.

Additionally, the Grays participated in community based projects. “Some of our community work included building a concrete floor for the non-profit primary private school, painting an orphanage and farming [at the orphanage], and planting trees,” Coco Gray said. Following their time in Tanzania, the Grays travelled to Zanzibar, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, where they worked with an organization dedicated to protecting national parks and lions.

While the Grays are extremely thankful and appreciative of the traditional education they got from Menlo, they both agreed that having immersive experiences are extremely important for students. “The day to day life that is lived [in Silicon Valley] is simply not a reality for most,” Coco Gray said. “Going out into the rest of the world and discovering different cultures, ideals, people, customs, governments, etc. is one of the best ways to educate yourself in one of the most well-rounded ways possible.”

The Grays also echoed the importance of having a gap year experience before they went to college, rather than doing something similar following their college experiences. “Tanzania, and the life we built there, will always be a part of the way I live and approach life from here on out,” Elena Gray said.

Additionally, taking a gap year has allowed them to learn valuable skills they will take with them to college and beyond. “People prioritize different things [and] have opposing opinions [and] I learned that it’s much more important to relate to someone’s similarities than to cast them away for their differences, [and] I think this is a very important skill for college,” Coco Gray said.

The Grays worked at various schools during their time in Tanzania and got to form extremely meaningful relationships with students and their families.

The Grays spent time in Zimbabwe, working with an organization called African Impact, that seeks to protect lions, as the number of lions has dropped by 80-90% in the last decade.