One year ago, I sat my final A Level exam. It was Chemistry Paper 3, which I've spoken about, along with all my other papers, in excruciating detail before.
I'll keep this post short, because it's going to touch on themes I seem to talk about all the time. Yes, I'm a bit scared of getting older; no, I don't get where the time went; yes, I love uni but it can be a drag. In fact, I'm only writing this post because I wrote a similar one for my GCSEs, and the symmetry pleases me a bit.
Don't be a tryhard
It's weird because I've done four A Levels, but only three of them stick in my mind. I keep on forgetting I did maths a year early, and in hindsight that wasn't a mistake but I'm also not proud of it. All that did was ensure I could do just three A Levels the year after, and I guess that was easier?
So instead of doing maths exams last year, I did further maths. God, I didn't make it clear enough in the A Level review post, but I bloody hated that subject. I never dropped it because I was too much of a coward to do so, but it was genuinely painful at times. Maybe it was the teaching, though I don't actually mind my teachers as much as I did then. Alright, my stats teacher telling us "get the diagrams right" was irritating at the start, but I've grown to appreciate his style, however eccentric it was.
I think it's more that you can only do so much when you're limited to a year and your teacher's rushing you because they're that eager to do past papers. Who cares whether you can handle it, you chose this course so deal with it. And I really should have dropped further maths, because in the end it was hardly worth doing. Okay, if I ever decide to go into finance or computing, it might prove a bit useful. But surely my degree in chemistry will be sufficient, right?
The first moral is: don't be a tryhard. If you're doing further maths and don't see a reason in doing it, quit. And if you're doing all of maths in first year, at least try and enjoy it. It was easier for me because, believe it or not, I used to love maths - now I shudder at the sight of an integral.
And if you're wondering what I'd have chosen instead of further...I think I'd have done classics. Maybe history, if I wasn't so scared of some of the teachers. Maybe Latin, if I was able to convince my teacher. But yeah, probably classics - it's genuinely fascinating, and I could have done with a humanities subject at times.
People are alright
When I went into sixth form, I was shy, maybe very awkward. Not sure if I've changed since, I mean just look at the blog. But one thing which was great was having friends. I miss that friend group, we got along so well. Our inside jokes were brilliant, and following the Euros that year was one of my favourite experiences ever. Oh, and some of us started blogs, which is nice, and mine is somehow the last one standing.
Going into uni, my mindset was I'd try and make some more friends, maybe to the point I'd drift off completely into a separate bubble. That was wrong, indeed I probably interact with my old secondary friends more often than I do with uni friends. And yeah, part of that is down to how often I met up with them and hung out with them at school. Yeah, loads of conversations tended to involve venting about teachers, but they're long gone now, so that's irrelevant. At uni, it's more isolating, especially if you commute, you don't see your friends as often unless it's at lectures.
The second moral, therefore, is this: don't dismiss your sixth form friends, they're probably cooler than you think.
Moving on
But no, on the whole I'm okay with not being in sixth form anymore. I don't shed any tears when I sometimes pass by it, not that I live particularly nearby. I conveniently avoid it on my commute, and I'm far more focused on what to do at uni than what I did in sixth form. That's probably the right approach, at least I'm not stuck in the "high school is the best years of your life" mindset because it so obviously isn't.
This is also weirdly the first time I've ever written about the end of sixth form - back in May last year, I was going through writer's block, probably deemed the idea too personal or irrelevant, and decided to study for my exams instead. You could very easily have just guessed I'd never finished, the stuff I wrote about was business as usual.
Yet I feel like I needed to write this post, not just for the symmetry but also because I do sometimes wonder whether life back then was easier. It probably was, but I'm not sure if it was more satisfying.
By the way, do you hate maths? Do you have good memories of your sixth form? I'd love to hear your feedback and all that - feel free to leave a comment or send me an email directly!
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