College Themed Gap Year?
What is that? Shhhh….we just made it up 😊
I sometimes see the question from parents of high school juniors and seniors – “For those with children in college, what experiences have you learned from their freshman year and what did you wish you knew beforehand?“
So much to say on this topic but let’s talk about the landing-on-the-college-campus part and how to structure that is such a way to support success.
For some students the road to college looks like a Gap year first to build self-management, social, executive functioning skills. This is a great way to go! For others, it will look like a couple of years at a community college, a slower runway to build college based soft skills while still being at home and having that support structure. Means these students can build skills in chunks – college-based skills first while working on the home and personal based skills slower. Another fantastic option.
But some students really, really want to start out at a 4-year college/university and have that experience, and will not be deterred. And some of those families are worried their student doesn’t quite have the skills to take on the self-management, executive functioning, social skills, needed for success in college life along with the academic expectations.
So, what to do?
How about getting the best of all three – gap year, community college, and 4-year college/university.
I would say that the #1 best thing my ASD son (and we) did several years ago was to treat the first year of university like an On-Campus, College-Themed Gap Year.
What I mean by that is that we let my student grow into being a college student in his own time with the support he needed while he was actually being a college student. And with no structured on-campus program to lean on.
**(keep in mind this lengthened the amount of time he will be going to college, to 5 or 6 years, so this may be a factor for you if funding is an issue).
Here’s what that looked like:
My student took classes part time as a disability related accommodation, so he was still eligible to be in the dorms. His first quarter was only 5 units.
He took “how to be a college student”/study skills and exploratory themed classes that first quarter, like an entry level writing class, a careers exploration class, and an undecided student seminar. After that he took another “how to write like a college student’ class, a fun elective, and another light weight general education class. By third quarter he took a 4 unit class for the first time (and faced some high level academic expectations), a medium level general education class, and another fun elective to balance it off. By starting off slowly with easier classes my student was able to build academic and college navigation skills at his pace without the pressure of a full courseload of demanding academic classes.
He had many supports on campus and virtually to help him develop effective college student’ing skills beyond just the academics. These were in place before he even moved into the dorms. This included an on-campus peer mentor, virtual college navigation coach, and others. These supports helped him develop all the soft skills he needed to be successful in the college setting. Things like trying new things, being social (and finding his people), taking care of and managing himself, tracking all his work, navigating the campus, having fun, knowing when and how to get on campus support, staying on top of the busywork like his e-mail and portal messages, etc…….
We got as many accommodations in place as possible – academic, housing, registration, and also some “unofficial” accommodations so he would have choices of what he needed to support his success.
For the full first year we (the team) taught my student how to navigate this setting, rather than just sending him there and he and we just assuming he is an adult college student and is smart so he would have the skills he needed to be successful. We kept the training wheels on in the way he wanted (all supports were chosen/accepted by him) and needed to be successful. At the same time, as he built skills we faded the supports around him slowly and at the same time we continually expected more from him, while we taught him how to meet those increasing expectations.
We changed how we worked with my student, always reminding him (and ourselves) that we, the parents, were no longer “the boss of his life”, that he had the right to make his own decisions, but that we appreciated remaining in the “consultant” role. By respecting his choice, even when we didn’t agree with it, he was more likely to keep us close in his life, trust us, and come to us for help.
So, we took the emphasis OFF the academics that first year and allowed the emphasis to be on learning to be successful in the college setting as a whole. We gave him time to build the skills he will need to be successful for the remainder of his time at college (again, likely 5 or 6 years total for him). In essence we allowed this first year to be a year he learned HOW to “adult” and how to “college student”. So then he would have the foundation to start learning whatever he was there for academically.
Much more I could say about each point, but you get the idea.