Six years later...

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It's funny how A Level results day always prompts people to reminisce about their school days and ponder the direction their lives could have taken had they chosen differently. Like many people, my life has taken on a very different path to those I was toying with in sixth form (mainly because I didn't know the role of 'Advice Coordinator' existed back then but that's beside the point).

For some reason I had my heart set on doing Biomedical Science at University despite a clear lack of ability and interest in the area. Having shunned the subjects I actually had a decent level of understanding in, I embarked on what was to be three years of pretending my degree didn't exist. Instead I threw myself into extracurricular activities from the word go (gospel choir in fresher's week, anyone?) and learned just how amazing the Students' Union was. Of course this stood me in good stead for going on to work in the student movement and I genuinely believe that had my course been more riveting the opportunity to get involved in the Union might have passed me by.

On the flip side, not doing what I was really passionate about meant that my last memories of education are not great. Don't get me wrong, I adored University, but that was more to do with my new found independence as opposed to lectures and lab sessions (those weeks of sketching rat brain were the worst of my life!).

So six years later what have I learnt? Not much in the area of my degree but we all know that learning is hardly restricted to academia:


1). Don't pick a subject because it sounds clever!
 This may be obvious but it's so easy to get sucked into something because you like the way it sounds (I guess this goes for job roles, too). A few impressed looks were so not worth trying to get to grips with cell biology.

2). Blessings in disguise do exist.
I ended up at my insurance choice as I missed out on the grades I needed however I can honestly say that I can't imagine spending my student days anywhere else. Not that underperforming in your exams is to be encouraged however in my case this actually worked out pretty well!

3). There's usually another way.
Unless you're looking at a really specific career (such as Medicine or Dentistry) then you can often find your own way into a job. I'm not saying it's easy but sometimes you just need to explore your options at your own pace rather than following your life plan to the last detail. As the majority of the twitter world have been saying to those getting results, today does not need to dictate the rest of your life. You have more power than you realise to change direction and so don't let less than perfect grades lead you to compromise your ambitions.