Things I Wish I Knew During Sixth Form

To avoid being too hard on myself when it comes to thinking about my time in secondary school and sixth form, I always have to remind myself of the expression ‘hindsight is an exact science’. It’s so easy to think “I could have done this”, “I shouldn’t have been bothered by that” or “if I could go back, I would have done X/Y/Z differently” when reflecting on any situation.

These thoughts are a pointless and frustrating form of self-torture. Besides, you tend not to realise that you should have done things differently until long after something has finished anyway. With regard to my time at sixth form doing my A-levels, my biggest regret is not being able to see outside of the bubble of school and having real tunnel vision. Here are some things I wish I had realised while still at school:

1- Sixth form likes to make you feel inadequate if you’re not achieving A* on every single test or piece of homework. 

Even though in the grand scheme of things, a C isn’t that different from an A, school made you feel like you weren’t trying or you weren’t intelligent if your best work was never an A. Most jobs and universities only ask for a pass grade rather than anything specific but some teachers would make you feel that you would never be able to achieve anything in the future because you only ever managed to get a grade C.

After being at university for over a year now, I have come to realise that whether you got an A or an E, a lot of us end up in the same place.  At my university (Aberystwyth), I am in classes with people who achieved all A* at A-level, people who failed a few things and people with no A-Levels at all because they left school to get a job at 16. Even though during school it feels like your entire world revolves around them, from the moment you leave school on your last day, grades are no longer relevant.

2- You’re not going to be there forever.

You spend most of your teenage life at school so it makes sense that it feels like it will never end. Maybe if the finish line was in sight, I would have been able to put things into perspective much more. Rather than stand up for myself and others, I much preferred to blend in and not draw any attention to myself to avoid any sort of drama. Now I realise there were so many times I could have been kinder, braver and made people’s lives much easier.

3- Following on from number 2, don’t worry too much about your reputation in school because it will not be with you your whole life. Unless you are super close to one of your best friends, you will probably not see much of anybody from school if you choose to go off to uni. Even if you go to the same place and do the exact same course, you still won’t interact much with your school friends. That means you have a clean slate. Don’t worry about expressing interests or being yourself because you don’t want a certain label- school labels are not permanent.

4- Sixth form does not prepare you at all for uni.

In many ways, sixth form impedes your development. You are conditioned to get used to following instructions and never thinking for yourself. Once you go to university or into work and you need to start thinking a bit more independently, you’ll find that school has eroded some of these skills. It’s harder to stop being a robot than it is to become one. There is a very clear difference between people that went to sixth form and people that went to college and you will realise this quickly.

The ex-college students are always much more independent and better at time management because they have relearned some of their independence at college. In sixth form, you’re still treated like a child and therefore you don’t develop these skills. One of the hardest parts of uni is being given learning resources but no instructions on how or when to use them.

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