Taking a semester off

[Done]

Hey,

I will start a Master in engineering at Columbia University this Fall.

I already have two bachelor degrees and I am just 22 years old. My problem now is that I will have to figure out where I wanna work after Columbia or if I wanna go on for a Ph.D. I already talked to a lot of companies and have a lot of ideas and I definitely wanna do a Ph.D.. I just do not know if I want to do my Ph.D. straight after my Master, if I wanna do it in corporation with a company or if I wanna go into one of these programs where u sign up for 4 years, whereof u work two years and get the other two off by full payment to do a Ph.D. Furthermore I also know the companies I could imagine working for, but they are more than two To sum it up, I am already pretty sure what I wanna do, but not when and where.

Unfortunately I never had time to do a lot of internships because I had to write all my tests (10-15 every semester) in the end of my lecture-free time. That was just how our system worked. Thats why I feel that some time-off could really help me to figure out what to do after my Master. I wouldn't sit around, I would spend the time on internships in companies I really could imagine to work for (not just do an internship to put it on my c.v.)

I also don't feel that this semester off would hurt me, as I would still be done with my Master at 24 and as it is sth. I can easily explain to everybody.

So before talking to my professor, is this even possible in the US, is there sth. special I need to say? Is it a problem that I would have two winter semesters instead of one winter and one summer semester?

Thanks a lot for the input