Senior year is for students to figure out what they would like to do after graduation, but in some cases students may decide to choose other plans that may not involve school like Elizabeth Slager (12).

“On my semester off I will hopefully be working, then the next summer I will be going back to camp that I work at, then I will have a gap year after that,” Slager said.

According to University of Denver representative Emily Forbes, Director of Communication, gap years are becoming very popular, and many students choose to take a gap year in order to help others or to just take a break from school.

“[In that gap year] I will either be moving with one of my friends to do a few different jobs or I will be doing mission trips. I may possibly be moving to Florida with one of my friends, I might go to Colorado or I could go to New Orleans. Mission trip-wise I would want to go to Africa,” Slager said.

In order to discover what she would like to do after her gap year, Slager chose  go to Africa to help others that are going through tough times.

“I chose [Africa] because I love to work with foster care and adoption. They just have very high ratings of people in adoption because it is very unsanitary [in Africa],” Slager said.

After the trip, Slager will decide what she would like to pursue for her career.

“Career-wise I have many options that I’m looking at, but they are also so different ranging from psychology to FBI work to social work to children’s work that I want to take time off to know what to do,” Slager said.