‘Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm’
About half the people collecting their A Level results today won’t get a place at university. And to all of you who don’t, do not worry. This is not the be all and end all.
I spent most of my sixth form years rather inebriated, massively underachieved in my A Levels and then arrived a month later in a depressing east London car park at my backup choice of university. Failure can do wonderful things to people and it was all a bit of a wake up call.
For me, the main thing about university was getting away from where I grew up. I was desperate to move to London from sleepy Cambridgeshire countryside. All my friends made into their first choices – and that for me was one of the more depressing things. Naturally A Level results day was a day like many other nights for those two years.
I know full well that there was no way I would have chosen not to go to university four years ago. If I hadn’t have gained a place anywhere, I would have been freaking out a lot. Yet, I still want to say to anyone who is in that position, not to worry. My job now has nothing to do with my degree, it was all done through experience.
Our education system is so fundamentally flawed by forcing people down the university route. For me, as someone who went to a grammar school, that meant that almost everybody in the year went to university. It never should have been like this and the Blairite nightmare to get half of our 18 year-olds in university, is finally taking its toll.
So breathe, go out and get horrendously drunk. Then work out what it is you want to do and start working towards it. In fear of sounding like a shit self-help book, life is what you make it.
All that said, well done to those who have achieved well and gotten into their first choices. It does make everything a hell lot easier.
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