Every year, high school graduates face two choices that determine how they will spend the next few years. Some graduates go straight to some form of post-secondary study. Others prefer to undergo one or more “gap years” after they graduate, which are usually spent working.
But what path is better, and why do people choose either one? That is the question I want to answer.

NAIT is a polytechnic that has a bar on campus, and that might sound like a good thing — having once dreamed of a life in the trades, I can respect the desire for an adult beverage at the end of the day. Trades people have extraordinarily hard jobs. Between the hours...