A Distinct Path

Thursday 17 August 2006, Sardinia; walking down to the rather pebbly beach on the third day of our holiday, in what now felt as an accepted routine, I felt confident. 

"... at worst, Mum, I'll get ABBC," I remember saying, "A in English, B in History, B in Sport and a C in Biology."

It was AS Level results day, and I wasn't facing the nervous walk in to school to pick up an envelope before looking down with my heart pounding.  I was waiting on a text, from a friend who I had placed the responsibility of getting my results for me whilst I was on holiday.

I had breezed through GCSE without much effort, and whilst I hadn't changed too much, I was sure I had put in enough effort to make the step up to AS.  With only four subjects, how could I not have enough time to revise sufficiently, and achieve some good solid foundations before A2 began? Well, that was the thinking anyway.

Lying on the beach, phone in hand, the text was expected around 12 o'clock.  A nervy fifteen minutes or so followed after midday, attempting to read a book as the nerves hit.

Finally, the vibration on the old Nokia hit.

English C.

History D.

Sport Studies E.

Biology U.

Umm, was this a joke? "I'm really sorry mate, I'm not joking."

In that instant, my trouble free world took the most unexpected and devastating of hits. Relatively speaking, of course.  I had expected, and been expected to do far better.  I was aiming for BBB to get on the Uni course that I wanted to be on, so this had massively set me back and left me with a mountain to climb to get remotely near where I should have been.

Getting the results on holiday was horrible.  I had no time or space to get my head round the results, and spent most of my time swimming out to a big rock a hundred meters or so to sea.  Worse of all, my parents - clearly disappointed, didn't lay in to me until we got home.  Very much an air of a stay of execution.  I knew it was coming.

Friday 28th October 2011, Home; shortly before work, it was worth a quick check on the Uni online results page to see if the painfully dull sounding Board of Examiners had finally confirmed my results.

Not that I expected any thing to have been published, just like the umpteen looks before hand. So when I checked and saw "Pass with Distinction" I had to get my mum to read it, just to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

Whilst it was what I had aimed for over the last year, I feared I had just dropped short after a particular Icelandic lecturer took a dislike to me and crucified a presentation that deserved a good 10% more.  Of course, to get a commendation at MSc level would have been good still, but I had aimed for a distinction knowing it was the only grade I could get that would make the cost of the last year worth it.

To get a distinction completed five years and two months of an educational roller coaster.  Back in August 2006, I was told by pretty much everyone going that it was nigh on impossible to recover grades like that.  I had a firm talking to by both the head of sixth form and my parents to get my head down and work, focusing less on being the class clown and playing football.  Three resits in January helped bring English, History and Sport Studies up a grade, whilst Biology was never given another passing thought as it was unceremoniously sacked off.  There are some things you can recover from in the world, but a U in Biology is not one of them.

I went on to get BBC at A Level, and whilst it didn't hit my BBB target, I had recovered enough to give myself a chance of getting on a good course at a good Uni.  Even before the results were published, I'd decided journalism wasn't the path I wanted to take, I eventually took a course through clearing that had some modules which I was really interested in.  Somewhat bravely (stupidly?), a fair few of the modules were science based, but I managed to get through.  Fortunately, the management focused modules helped and I earnt a solid 2.1 - another step as I tried to recover the disaster of '06.

The result of this year has finally put to bed that let down, and allowed me to perform better than expected.

With the price and time invested in the last year, it was inevitable that it would/will act as a huge weight on my shoulders until I justify it by getting a job better than one I would have got had I not studied for an MSc.  It will be some time yet until that weight can truly be lifted, but the result gained on Friday is the best first step towards achieving that.

Now to get a job.