If your teenager is talking about taking a year away from the classroom between high school and college, you may have Malia Obama to thank for that.

如果你家十几岁的孩子说打算在高中和大学的间隙离开课堂一年，那很可能是拜马莉娅•奥巴马(Malia Obama)所赐。

But if they’re not yet talking about whether to follow her lead, they should be.

但是，他们理应开始考虑要不要跟随她的脚步，如果还没这么想的话。

Taking time off between high school and college or sometime during the undergraduate years, as Ms Obama is doing before she attends Harvard, has plenty of appeal for high school graduates who don’t know what they want out of college or seek to work, travel or volunteer on the sort of schedule that an academic calendar does not allow.

奥巴马在去哈佛之前休学了。有些高中毕业生不知道是为了什么去上大学，或是希望按照学位课程安排所不允许的方案去找工作、旅行，做义工。像奥巴马那样，在高中升大学或是在本科阶段休学一段时间，这种做法对于他们来说非常有吸引力。

Parents, however, often worry themselves sick over such talk.

但是，这样的谈话往往会令父母担心得要死。

While no one wants to drop a six-figure sum on a teenager who doesn’t want to be in school, there are often nagging doubts over whether students who stop for a bit will ultimately get back on track.

如果十几岁的子女不想上学，没人会希望在他们身上投入六位数的求学费用，然而很多人怀疑，如果学生暂停学业一段时间，最终到底还会不会回到求学的轨道上来。

Twenty-five years ago, my friend Colin Hall and I tried to dispel those concerns by finding and interviewing as many students who took gap years as we could.

在25年前，我和朋友科林•霍尔(Colin Hall)想尽可能地找寻并采访一些有过间隔年(gap year)经历的学生，从而打消这些顾虑。

We profiled 33 of them in a book called Taking Time Off, which was published 20 years ago.

我们选了其中33人做了深度报道，收入一本名叫《休息一下》(Taking Time Off)的书，在20年前出版。

This summer, after news of Ms Obama’s choice, I tracked down everyone from the book to see what had become of them.

今年夏天，在奥巴马大女儿的选择传出后，我追踪调查了那本书里的每个人，看看他们现在的状况。

Was their gap year ultimately incidental to their lives, or did it help them grow into the person they were meant to become? And for those who now had children, how would they react if their offspring wanted to take a gap year?

他们的间隔年最终对人生没产生太大影响，还是的确帮助他们成长为自己想要成为的人？对那些现在有了孩子的人，如果他们的孩子想休学一年再上大学，他们会是什么反应？

Families seeking data on gap years won’t find much.

你找不到很多关于间隔年的数据。

Part of the problem is that federal data on college delay and completion don’t measure all the reasons people started college late.

一个问题是关于延迟上大学和毕业的联邦数据并不涵盖人们延迟上大学的所有原因。

While some people make a deliberate choice to delay college to serve in the military or work or travel, others meander for a few years before deciding to try college after all.

虽然有些人是有意延迟上大学，去参军、工作或旅行，也有些人只是晃荡了几年，才最终决定去上大学试试。

A number of researchers have shown a connection between a deliberate choice to take some time off and getting better grades upon return to the classroom.

很多研究者发现，故意选择休学一段时间与回到学校后取得更好成绩之间存在联系。

Devin G. Pope, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, saw the link among people who had served at a Mormon mission.

芝加哥大学布斯商学院(University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business)的行为学教授德温•G•波普(Devin G. Pope)在参与了摩门教传道活动的人中也发现了这种联系。

Bob Clagett, the former dean of admissions at Middlebury College, saw similar results when he helped inspire number-crunching among students there and at the University of North Carolina.

米德尔伯里学院(Middlebury College)的前招生部主任鲍勃•克拉格特(Bob Clagett)在帮助分析该校和北卡罗来纳大学(University of North Carolina)的学生数据时也发现了类似的结果。

Once college is over, however, we enter the realm of anecdotal evidence when it comes to first jobs.

不过，一旦大学结束，刚开始工作，就进入经验证据的领域。

Parents worry that if their children take a gap year, they will appear wayward to employers, which may have more to do with the term than how that year was spent.

父母们担心，如果孩子经历间隔年，雇主们会觉得他们太任性——这可能更多地是因为这个说法，而非这一年是如何度过的。

It suggests a hole, said Abigail Falik, founder of Global Citizen Year, which has 115 people working in four countries.

它意味着有个空洞，全球公民年(Global Citizen Year)的创始人阿比盖尔•法利克(Abigail Falik)说。目前该项目有115人在4个国家工作。

She prefers the term bridge year, with its implication of a deliberate connection between one stage of life and the next.

她更喜欢过渡年(bridge year)这个说法，它表明，这是故意把人生的一个阶段和下一个阶段联系起来。

In fact, logic would suggest that many people who take a gap year get better jobs after college than people who don’t.

事实上，很多经历过间隔年的人在大学毕业后找到的工作，按道理应该比没经历过的人更好。

If you were hiring entry-level employees, wouldn’t you rather employ the risk-taking 23-year-olds who found their way in the world for a while than the 22-year-olds who have not done much besides going to school?

如果你在招聘初级职员，你会选择一个23岁的敢于冒险花一段时间在世界上寻找自己道路的人，还是一个22岁的除了上学没做过太多事情的人？