gap year-your thoughts and experiences

[brimfull]

would you recommend one?
when ..before or after uni?

lazymum - there is no problem at all applying to university after A-levels.

Working at a prep school sounds like a very good idea for a gap year. Though I hope your DS will fit some overseas travel in too

DD2 19 is applying for uni now. She did apply last year but didn't get into the un@s she wanted. She is a bit more mature now and has widened her choices. Her old college has helped her to apply.
She has an audition at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama on the 19th February.
She has not really done much with her gap year. Although she has done some more musical theatre stuff, she is in the Welsh premiere of Rent in April. She is also doing some dance classes.

anna, i have to strongly disagree with your

'Anyway, the absolute key to having a good time as an au pair is a nice rich family (preferably with other domestic help for cleaning) who look after you well and only want you to teach the children English and play with them and make the odd meal (rather than chores and errands and housework).'

i was an aupair and have lots of friends who were aupairs and its definitely not about being in a rich family who has a cleaner!

Well, if you liked being a skivvy in a poor family ... But I think that's just silly, personally, if you have the option of being in a family who can take you on holiday and who have a culturally varied and interesting lifestyle and good jobs.

Actually the wealthier the family the more unlikely it is that they will have varied cultural interests. They will quite possibly be total wankers.

Two au pair jobs on offer.

Politics lecturer at the Sorbonne and his part-time philosophy lecturer wife, 2 small children, living in rented rather ramshackle accom just off the Place de Vosges?

Or

An excecutive director at Credit Agricole and his SAHM wife (hobbies shopping and thalassotherapie), one precious child and a neat-freak minimalist appartment near the Bois de Boulogne.

Both sound absolutely vile, Swedes .

BonsoirAnna -

Both are also highly improbable .

Yes, I see they probably are. My knowledge of life in Paris is extremely limited.

If I lived in Paris I'd like to live on the Place des Vosges. Although my friend lives in a gorgeous 4 bedroom appartment virtually at the foot of the Eiffel tower - which is very impressive but extremely sterile-feeling area-wise.

I know you have mentioned planning to move to somewhere else in Paris - where would you like to move to?

Anna, I am afraid that an aupair with expectations like you describe is unlikely to make the most of her experience.

Aupairs definitely should not be exploited like a servant and be given the free time they have been promised. But part of learning experience is living with a family that has a different lifestyle and see how they do things their way. How boring would it be to live with a family with 'good jobs' if that means the usual banker, lawyer, accountant, businessman blah. I find Swedes' example of living with a lecturer's family quite interesting.

The happiest aupairs are those who get their social life outside of the family. I cannot imagine a young person expecting to get their intellectual and social stimulation from being with the family. They should want to go out, shop, party, meet blokes - all good aupair fodder.

blueshoes - I agree.

ggirl, I hope I have not put you off the aupair option. As someone who uses aupairs, I am just giving the other side of the coin from what I observe. Certainly, my aupairs have treated me a bit like a parent in that they tell me stuff about their friends/boyfriends (maybe they would not tell their parents even) but also keep stuff to themselves that they feel would be too wild for me (an older person) to swallow.

no blueshoes not me,dd is quite keen,although I think I'd feel a nervous wreck thinking of her being an au pair in another country.
Have over a yr to get used to the idea though if she decides to be one.

I really dont understand this 'gap year' business. Why should someone who is going/has been to uni have a gap year, yet someone who goes straight into work from school dosent?

Moondancer - There is nothing to stop someone who is going directly into employment having a year off. Or working for a few years and then having a year off. It's called a MacGap Year I think.

moondancer -anyone can have a gap yr

You are right that a Gap year isn't always wise for maths students. The following is an extract from Cambridge university's Guide to Admissions in Mathematics

"Only a small minority of mathematics students take a gap year. Some of those who do take a gap year
apply for a deferred place before they leave school. Although in many subjects the extra maturity gained
from a gap year is a great asset, in mathematics this has to be balanced against the danger of going
stale or ?off the boil?. If you do decide that you want a gap year, then you should plan to keep up your
mathematics in some way if possible, and you should certainly get back into good practice (for example,
by working through past STEP papers) before you start the course. Some colleges are more encouraging
than others to those wishing to defer entry"

ggirl, the good thing about aupairing in France is your dd can leave a bad family any time without worry about long flights or visa requirements. It is a bit of luck of the draw as a family that looks good on paper can be very different in reality. But if she is flexible and keeps an open mind, I think that would make things a lot easier for her.

It is difficult to find families from a distance but one criteria I use to screen aupairs is how prompt they are in responding to my emails, particularly my long questionnaire, and how plausible their stories are. Your dd could use similar techniques to find a nice family. She just needs a family that will treat her decently, be sensitive to the fact that she is alone in a new country and provide support, even if it is just telling her how to get to places and where she can access french classes. How people respond to emails is one way of screening.

Also, it is more likely than not that a family would have used aupairs before. She should ask to speak (not just email) to previous aupairs to ask about the family.

Blueshoes - That sounds very good advice. Do you mind if I ask you what nationality your au pair and previous au pairs is/are?

thanks blueshoes that's very helpful

Swedes, my first aupair is German, second and current one is Swedish and the next one (coming in 3 weeks' time) is ... French from Paris!

blueshoes - your definition of "good jobs" certainly isn't necessarily mine and it doesn't apply to the many au pair employing families I know. The lawyer, banker, accountant type families all have full-time nannies whereas the families who employ au pairs do so because they have more flexible lifestyles that don't require childcare on call all day every day.

Art directors, stylists, actors and actresses, architects, interior designers, interpreters, museum directors etc all fall into my definition of "good jobs".

Swedes - like you, I used to hanker after living on Place des Vosges (or on the Ile Saint-Louis) but I am completely over that now, probably because I lived very near the Place des Vosges for many years and in that time saw the whole area transform from a very peaceful and beautiful, albeit run down, architectural gem to a tourist shopping centre . The rue des Francs Bourgeois has been ruined - it is all Kiehl's and L'Occitane and Birkenstocks shops these days.

And the Ile Saint-Louis is being bought out by oil money.

I agree that the area around the Eiffel Tower is not very attractive. But then, I dislike intensely Haussmannian architecture - I love 16th/17th century architecture with a thorough modern makeover (there is no choice but do this to make it livable) and otherwise I like Art Nouveau or Art Déco^.

So - to answer your question - where would I move to. I have to take schooling into consideration, so need to stay in the Western arrondissements (where the bilingual and international schools are); I want, preferably, an interwar apartment (even better with a garage under the block - these were just beginning in the late 1920s); I don't want an area that is attractive to non-residents (because then the local amenities go haywire).

So - 6th; 7th bordering the 6th and nowhere near the 15th; the 8th bordering the 17th.

snorkle, very interesting about gap years for math students. It would make sense. I did Math and Further Math at A Level and don't remember much of it! But it was fun when I did it.

Anna, all the jobs you mentioned are interesting as well. Actually, I would hesitate to label jobs 'good' or 'bad' because a job does not necessarily correlate with the nature of the person that is doing it except unless maybe you are a bounty hunter or a con artist or 'banker' in these times . A 'poor' family as you described does not mean they will drive their aupair like a slave, nor does a 'rich' family guarantee a reasonable non-dysfunctional environment.

If a family is decent and fair, the aupair will have a nice time balanced between her duties and her social life, learning about a different lifestyle and culture and taking in new experiences.

My aupairs have come from different countries and from what I can discern what would be different classes of society if transplanted into the UK context. I don't think you need a certain fit for it to work, so long as people are flexible and openminded.