My daughter is a senior in high school and I want to encourage her to at least consider not going straight into college. She's a great student, responsible, has excellent grades, I just want her to consider the option of delaying college (or even...dare I say it...not going to college at all!) It's fine if she decides to go to college right away anyway, but her decision will be stronger if she thinks about other options. And I want her to feel like it IS a choice.

I'm browsing around looking for ideas, maybe something will catch her attention. Money is an issue, but you can throw out ideas as if it isn't, if you like. Her plan at the moment is to become a civil engineer (bike lanes and traffic lights!). She is interested in math and traveling. She wants to do Engineers Without Borders. She speaks decent Spanish.

So if you could go back and have a gap year between high school & college, or perhaps you did, or perhaps you didn't go to college, what would/ did you do? (Habitat for Humanity seems to have some good programs, so if you have experience with that, that would be useful to know about.)