The past month has been a roller coaster of emotions due getting exam results and having to decide what my plans are for the next year in a very short space of time.
My exams weren't what I was expecting, not in a good way either which for the time being excluded one route which I had managed to convince myself was the only way to a successful future. University. Now I know lots of people go to university because its a way to the job of their dreams and its what is expected of many young people once they leave the state education system. I thought this too, I convinced myself and had many emotional break downs over the fact that I believed that uni was my only option to be successful, because many of my friends believed this too. University gives you degrees which leads to jobs (apparently). However, many people don't even go into the job they want too using their degree so why waste that money?
Many people say they go to uni for the "experience of moving out and living on your own" as well as for the degree at the end of it. In my opinion that's fine go for it live your youth out while you can and getting into uni is a massive achievement as it is! But for me, because I was worrying about my future so much I ignored what my actual feelings about university were. I didn't want to go. I saw it as my only option as my Sixth Form college didn't really talk about apprenticeships because its main goal was to get it's students into university.
So when I got my results, i felt a weight lifted off me because, I didn't have to go to university anymore. I had the world at my feet, I could go into a job and work my way up if I really wanted to instead, or go for an apprenticeship to earn money instead of spend £9,000 a year of money that's the governments money not mine. I felt like I could really think about what I wanted to do with my life. From the age of 14 I've been told, "you need to know what you are going to do for a career now and study for that career" which is fine for some people, but me, I felt the pressure.
I now know that my results were a blessing in disguise. I wasn't cut out for more education, I was suited to the system of exams determining my future I wanted to make my future for myself. Incidentally I had a job interview for a simple sales assistant job the same day as my results came out and I decided to put my all into that interview and forget about my results. And now I have just started working as I got that job despite the trauma I had been through that day.
So my advice for going to university is, don't rush it. Look at other option and don't believe that university is the only way. It's one way that works for many people who flock to uni every year but its okay if its not for you. I learnt the hard way that I was meant for something else.
