A-Levels: So you have your results, what’s next?

A-levels were honestly the most stressful time of my life; two years struggling through sixth form with poor mental health, trying to complete coursework, managing a part-time job and just the overwhelming realities of teenage life.

A-levels

A-Levels: Results day

If you’re reading this and your A-Level results are sat on the table in front of you, first of all, congratulations! Regardless of all this bollocks that gets released every year about how A-level exams are getting easier, they are still hard for any student completing them. But what now?

Maybe you’re already set on your next move and you either have a job, an apprenticeship or a university place waiting. Or maybe you have your around-the-world plane ticket in hand and are off travelling for a bit (“on your gap yah”), but what if you don’t?

What if everything has actually suddenly become a bit overwhelming, or you didn’t get the results you needed and you’re not sure what to do next?

Can I say something? You’ll be fine.

To go to university or not to go to university?

University is not the only route into a successful career. I graduated the (academic) year before the higher fees came in and it’s perfectly justifiable to turn down university based on this, and there are other ways to getting a degree.

It’s always been okay to not want to go to university but unfortunately some employers are still blinded by the need for applicants to have a degree (the subject is often irrelevant).

A degree in its simplest terms, demonstrates you can apply yourself to something for a period of time and (hopefully) get a good result. All exams including A-levels essentially prove this, but with the right employer you can achieve more than a degree can give you.

If university is absolutely where you need to be and you didn’t get the grades needed to access your course, you could retake your exams. It’s not  ideal, but it’s a route forward.

Pick yourself up, and try again.

Graduation

Everything happens for a reason

A-levels is such a consuming time, and you’re made to feel that these grades are the barrier to everything else you want to do going forward in life and this really isn’t true.

Fundamentally my message to all young people, or anyone really, is that success and being sure of yourself takes time. It might seem the end of the world if you don’t get the grades you wanted, but the universe has a funny way of realigning you onto a different, often better path.

It might seem disastrous now, but when you look back on it in a few months or even years time, having taken a different route you might be in a far better place because you had to go down route B, C or even D and be so much happier than you would be if route A had gone to plan.

What are your results day experiences?

Until next time x

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