Get Lost to Get Found

"twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -- Mark TwainI don't know when it happened but it did.  For some reason, someone, somewhere at sometime thought it was a great idea to start pushing high school students to rush off to university or college immediately after graduating.Are you telling kids NOT to go to university?No, well almost no.I encourage students to go to university and college when they are ready for that type of experience.There are a ton of high school students who are prepared for college and university right after finishing high school but there are also those who need some time.  Now, I am not talking about time to play more Xbox and watch more videos on YouTube.  I am talking about taking time to figure themselves out a little bit more.  To have some experiences that will lead them to becoming more self-aware and to show them of the vast amount of possibilities for them and their future.One of my suggestions for students who aren't too sure if university or college is right for them is to, GET LOST! What I mean, is travel.Travel pushes people outside of their comfort zones and usually shows them things they never knew about themselves.  The travel doesn't have to be expensive and it doesn't even have to be outside of their home country but it does have to be away from their day-to-day lives and away from their day-to-day pressures and routines.Through travel students can meet new people, create new experiences with relevance and context for their lives and it can also boost a young person's confidence. But Ryan, if all these students don't go to university right away what will happen to the future of our nation and it's people?Well, England and other European countries actually push for students to take what they call a 'Gap Year'.  This is a year students are to take for themselves to travel, to volunteer, to work abroad and to become more aware of themselves and their future.   After completing a Gap Year, students then enroll in university or college and then statistically speaking are more likely to finish their program than their US counterpart.England boasts an impressive 6.8% University dropout rate compared to the US where only 54% of College students were surveyed to have a degree 6 years after enrolling in their program.So instead of pushing students to hurry up and decide which schools to apply to, we should be encouraging them to decide which countries and cities to visit and to hurry up and get lost!Could it be that getting lost is actually the best way for students to get found?     (For information on how you can travel to Japan with Ryan this summer, head to www.ryanspeaks.com)SourcesBBC  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6906012.stmMSNBC   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10053859/