Gap Year Opportunities
Recent high-school graduates often travel the world to broaden their horizons or stay close to home to deepen their awareness of the world around them. While we have compiled a list of programs to participate in after high school, there are countless other opportunities available throughout the internet. Talk to your counselor for help with planning and more.
Americorps LEAP Initiative
AmeriCorps LEAP (Learning Early Achieves Potential) Initiative members serve in preschool classrooms and nonprofit organizations focused on the social and emotional development of young children in our 20-county region. Americorps recruits, connects, and matches members to site service partner positions to help work one-on-one with children who are at-risk of falling behind.
Arete Project
The Arete Project provides an educational opportunity for young people that emphasizes intellectual intensity, democratic participation and leadership, connection to the natural world, and personal and communal responsibility. It combines a top-tier liberal arts academic programming with a practical education in stewardship and citizenship, supported by the three pillars of academics, labor, and self-governance.
Citizen Schools
Citizen Schools helps all students thrive in school and beyond through hands-on learning and career mentors. Volunteers serve as mentors with us in the classroom and across learning spaces to build trusting relationships with students that are critical for learning and growth.
Early Learning Corps
There’s nothing quite like seeing a student’s face light up when they start connecting the dots. As a tutor, you provide one-on-one tutoring interventions and support for students, while they build the skills they need to succeed – in the classroom, and for a lifetime.
The Literacy Lab
Literacy Lab believes literacy is a human right. They provide students in communities experiencing racial and/or economic inequities with evidence-based, culturally responsive literacy instruction as preparation for academic, professional, and personal success. Their goal: Create a more just society where all students have the literacy services needed to unlock educational opportunities and success in life.
Ocean Sciences & Blue Humanities Sea Education
Through SEA's interdisciplinary curriculum, students explore their passion for the ocean by experiencing cultural connections to the sea and engaging in scientific inquiry. Over the years, SEA alumni have gone on to successful careers in the various fields, becoming influential leaders and dedicated advocates for our ocean.
Reading Corps
By joining Minnesota Reading Corps as a tutor, you’ll not only make a difference in children’s lives, but the training and experience you gain will benefit your own career. This is a chance to give back to your community while building valuable career skills and a professional network.
Serve Minnesota
Serve Minnesota is a catalyst for positive social impact, working with AmeriCorps and community partners to address critical needs in Minnesota and share their proven practices nationally. Serve Minnesota uses data-driven solutions to tackle problems in educational achievement, economic opportunity, housing stability, recovery from substance use disorders, climate mitigation and more.
Teen Life
Discover how spending time in the world outside the classroom can help teens do better in school, during the college admissions process and in their adult lives. Their mission is to connect students, parents and educators with the best experiential learning opportunities for middle- and high-school students.
AMIGOS Gap Program
AMIGOS volunteer abroad programs bring together young people from the U.S. and Latin America to collaborate on ethical service projects, learn from local experts, develop leadership skills, and build bridges across cultures. Since 1965, AMIGOS youth have been creating positive change across the Americas. Today, their programs empower students ages 13–22 to engage with their community and the world.
Beyond Academy
Beyond Academy provides immersive global experiences that help shape the personal and professional growth of ambitious individuals. Program participants get the chance to travel, work and be part of vibrant cultures and communities across the world.
City Year
You see students with the strength and desire to offer so much to the world but without proper access to the learning environments they need to thrive. So, you work with a diverse team made up of people of different backgrounds, identities, and perspectives. Together you get stronger, learn from each other and build each other up.
Green Corps
With more than 400 graduates, Green Corps has been the country’s most respected training program for environmental organizers for over 30 years. Are you passionate about the environment? Are you looking to learn how you can make a difference? If so, our yearlong program is the best place to start.
Math Corps
Math is important in school and beyond. Proficiency is linked to high school graduation, college enrollment, and even lifetime earnings! But in the United States 66% of students reach the 8th grade without learning to do essential math proficiently. You can change this! The amazing thing about Math Corps is that Math Corps trains ordinary people to make an incredible impact as tutors.
Projects Abroad
Projects Abroad is the world’s largest provider of international volunteering, internships, and meaningful travel experiences. Learn new skills, meet new people, make a real difference, and have the experience of a lifetime.
Semester at Sea
Semester at Sea’s passenger ship brings together college students with learners at all stages of life to study with world-renowned professors in a shipboard classroom setting and in countries around the globe. With the ship as your home, you’ll find adventure, community, and life-changing experiences everywhere you go.
Service Year
Service Year Alliance works to make a year of paid, full-time service — a service year — a common expectation and opportunity for all young Americans. To advance our mission, we focus on expansion, recruitment, and impact.
Tilting Futures
Tilting Futures is a nonprofit that teaches the tools of personal transformation and global orientation to those seeking change in themselves—and the world around them.