MODERN FAMILY
MESSING up my A-levels actually turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Not that I am advocating that anyone should purposely do badly in one of the most important exams of their life, and certainly not something I will be encouraging my son to do as he revises for his.
It is just that with more than 25 years of reflection, that momentous moment that set my life off in a completely different direction doesn’t seem so bad after all.
As I stood on results morning in the deserted school corridor that had been so familiar for seven years of my life, everything looked very different.
Standing there holding that slip of paper, the results wouldn’t change – no matter how hard I looked at them.
I refused to listen to the well-intentioned people who told me “not to worry, things always work out for the best in the end”, or my favourite Irish saying, “what’s for ya, won’t go by ya”.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t worked hard, because I had. I had spent hour upon hour at the desk in my bedroom revising the French direct object pronouns and the perfect tense in German.
I was happy with my grade in English, but my foreign-language subjects let me down badly and there was no way I was getting into my first choice of university, never mind the next two.
For me, it was just a disaster with a capital “D”, like the one I had got in French.
Every year around this time, when students are revising for their exams, it takes me back to that day.
Looking back on it now I made the wrong decision on the subjects to take after my GCSE results, and I have often thought about what would have happened if I had chosen differently, but there is nothing that could change it, so I had to pick myself up and just get on with it.
I decided to go through clearing and got on a very practical media course that played to my strengths. It turned out to be the best decision I have ever made. I got a place in an amazing halls of residence, where I made some of the best friends I have ever had, picked subjects I knew I would enjoy and embarked on what turned out to be three of the most enjoyable years of my life.
I learned a lot, both academically and socially, enjoyed my course immensely, and made important contacts that have stayed with me ever since. The friends I made during that time are still some of the closest I have today, the type of people you can always rely on to be there for you.
The disappointment of my A-level results pushed me on to work that bit harder and meant I got a good degree.
It is now my son’s turn to start looking at his options that will shape the rest of his life.
Messing up my A-levels did seem like the end of the world at the time – but as I have told him it was actually the start of it.