Thursday, August 19, 2010
Twelve years ago today it was me collecting my A Level results. I bumped into my netball coach on the way into the library, she grinned at me and said “you’ve done well”, so I beamed back and got a little bit excited. I think I was predicted Bs and Cs, possibly an A in English if I pulled my socks up.
Turns out my socks had deserted me. My A Level results spelled DEAD… but without the A. I was gutted, not because it meant I wouldn’t get into uni or get the career of my dreams, but because they were crap grades. Okay, so I paid no attention what so ever in economics, actually quit law for a month or so and then returned to it and was considered a “natural and pithy” writer in English language and literature and therefore didn’t try very hard. So it was my own fault, but still. I was considered quite bright and this, I felt, was a poor representation of my intelligence.
It didn’t matter though, I’d already bagged a place on an in-house journalism training scheme – that I got paid to do – and had no intention of going to university anyway. Academia wasn’t for me, I wanted to graft.
And since then, not one single employer has ever asked what grades I got at A Level. My CV lists my A Level passes, of course, but I have never included the grades because they’re not very good. I’ve been working since I was 18 – so 12 years – and those A Level results haven’t mattered one jot. Neither, come to mention it, does the fact I don’t have a degree. I have been asked about it but saying variations of “well, I don’t have a degree but I have three more years of on-the-job experience than any graduate my age” has always done the trick.
I’m not saying don’t go to university, it’s a great thing to do – to learn, expand your mind, make new friends and find out what you really want a career in. I always knew… it was journalism or being an Olympic 100-metre sprinter, but I never made it out of the blocks on the latter!
Picture of Ludlow College, by James F Clay via Flickr under Creative Commons licence
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