Fear of the Future and Failing A-Levels
Last week thousands of people picked up their A-Level results. The news channels and papers reported the successes of students across the country. But not all students achieve the results they want, not all of them succeed. During the last week a fair few will be dealing with failure and what the future might hold. Something I understand too well, something I went through myself.
 Back in the old days of 1993 I went along on a bright but breezy day to the old Wigan and Leigh College to collect my A-Level results. I thought I hadnât done that good, but not too bad. I still had a chance to go to a university even if it wasnât my first choice university (that was Aberystwyth University, more on which later).
 However, as I met with my fellow students, all terrified and eager to pick up their results, I had a foreboding that all wasnât going to be that great. My university admissions tutor looked up at me and asked me to come to one side. She said my results were not what I was expecting â Iâd been expecting a predicted three Câs, which wasnât too bad, Iâd not really studied in my first year. Iâd partied hard and tried all of the 2nd year to catch up â and she handed me an envelope. I opened the envelope and the results in front of me where as follows: Combined English â N, Communication Studies â U, Theatre Studies â N. I just sat there and looked at the piece of paper for what seemed years and then looked up and said to my admissions tutor: âHow? What? This canât be right?â
 The admissions tutor said I could appeal the results if I thought they were incorrect â I did think they were incorrect â but I was only likely to end up with the lowest grade in one of the examinations on a remark. What I needed to do now is look up alternative career plans â resits, starting again or a life away from education. Of course at that moment I couldnât think of anything. All I had wanted was to go to university and now my dreams, my hopes and my future were shattered and destroyed and this was clear to see by the piece of paper in my hand, which appeared to be getting heavier with every second.
 Looking back, I should have appealed the results. I had studied hard, I had put work in to get results and judging on mock exams earlier in the year I had done reasonable. I even felt in my exams I had done better than the mocks. But I was advised not to appeal, so I didnât. I should have.
 For the next 24 hours â for the next week â I was in complete shock. I didnât know what to do next, I didnât know who I was, where my future lay. Later that day I had to tell my parents I had failed. It has to be the most difficult thing Iâve ever had to tell them â and Iâve had to tell them a lot of difficult (and stupid) things in my life â I felt I hadnât just let myself down, but Iâd let them down as well. They thought I was intelligent, I was academic and I was the first in the family due to go to university. That wouldnât be the case now.
 I have to say my parentsâ response, although disappointed, was majestic. They gave me time to absorb what had happened and after a few days sat me down and gave me loose ultimatums. They were: get a job, think about alternatives from University, study part-time and work part-time or go back and study full-time and with their support we would struggle through somehow.
 Now my parents arenât rich, they are from a working class background and we lived in a failed new town which had (and still has) little prospect for its residents. To go on to achieve something beyond working in a shop or factory it is a struggle (thereâs nothing wrong with working in a factory or shop of course). The town I grew up in consumes you and can be oppressive. Transport routes out of the town are minimal, job prospects in the town are mostly all at a low level and poverty and unemployment is so high it is shocking. The town is ignored by political hierarchies of all colours, an embarrassment better ignored and forgotten. Investment into the town is redirected elsewhere in the county and recently has become one of the destinations to direct European migration towards because the work available is low paid.
 So after careful consideration I decided to go back to my local college, work part-time (I had to pay my way even if it was just a gesture) and study three new a-levels. After a year I dropped two of the a-levels and started on a full time two-year course. If I was still going to go to university, it was going to take time to get there. But I knew again I was going, I was determined I would get there and you know what? I did. By the January of 1996 I knew I had a place at university and interestingly it was at the same place I had always wanted to attend. Aberystwyth University.
 I had visited the University with my father back in 1993. We travelled down on the train and it was one of those occasions where it was just father and son time. My future looked fruitful and my dad felt proud â even if I was going to be doing a Drama BA instead of something with a bit more employable credentials after graduation â so having failed my a-levels I felt I had let my mother down but more so my dad. He had seen the place I would study for a degree and was perhaps more excited about it than me (he was probably quite excited about me moving out of the house as well). When I failed he could see all of those dreams evaporating. So when, three years later, I got a place back at Aberystwyth I could tell he was as excited as I was. Roll on three years and graduation my father turned to me and said âIâm proud of you son.â Now my father isnât a cold and unfeeling person, heâs quite sensitive, but like many men of his generation he sometimes finds it difficult to express emotion. So to have my father turn to me and say he was proud meant so much. I had gone to university because I wanted to, but I wanted to succeed for my father as well. The family now had two graduates â myself and also my father (whoâd studied over the years for his degree through the Open University). So although I wasnât the first one in the family to get a degree I was the first one to go to University.
 So why am I telling you all this? There will be a number of a-level students out there now â a week on from results day â who will be in the same situation. There future plans destroyed seemingly. Scary important decisions looming over them. Everything really feels like it is lost and you have no future. But that isnât the case. Everything happens for a reason they say. If I had done good in my original exams who knows what would have happened. Maybe I would have gone to university and dropped out. Maybe I would have gone and become a successful actor? Who know? It really isnât important. What is important is the decisions you make now are just the same decisions we all make many years later. We think they determine who we are and what we are to become, but really they donât. Your career path you have in your mind currently wonât be the path you take. If you want to work in the arts the specific job you want to do wonât be the job you end up doing. It might be better, personally it will be better because it will be a role which hopefully brings out your strengths.
 My qualifications are useful to pop on a CV but do I use any of them in my work, you can probably tell through my dreadful grammar that I certainly donât use my English A-Level qualification, and the answer is no. The skills and tools I use in my work are the skills and tools Iâve learnt and developed over the years. Studying isnât about sitting A-Levels or Degrees, it is about sitting, standing and breathing life. So anyone out there who has failed in their exams donât let that define you. Succeed in life. Donât fail in life. Take each day as it comes, surround yourself with people who can emotionally support you and remember your whole life you will be learning and studying yourself and the world around you.
 Your life isnât and shouldnât be defined by a piece of paper with letters on it and certainly not how you perform during a three-hour exam in a college gym after two years of study. Put like that you know life isnât about a small three-hour pub quiz. Life is what happens outside the examination room and right now you have the chance to embrace it and take it forward for yourself and your future. Good luck and look forward and not back.
