Oh no, not A'Levels again!!

Because I didn't get punished enough the first time I made a decision recently to go back for a further whipping.

I'm sitting my A'Levels again. Yes, that's right. At 44.

I made a hash of them the first time. I managed to leave school with one A'Level Chemistry, Grade E and that was on the second sitting. The first sitting the year before I failed Maths, Biology and Chemistry entirely.

I was not naturally academic, but combined with teachers striking, one undergoing illness, another a disciplinary, and finally a series of temporary teachers I had a hell of a mountain to climb during my A' Levels and I didn't climb. I also didn't get the difference, the gap, between GCSE and A'Level. There is a whacking great leap in knowledge and skill. I can see it now. Even if everything else is perfect that gap alone can scupper a student. 

After I left school with my one A' Level I went to live in the town of the university that I wanted to go to, and spent a year working as a waitress while studying to get my Biology A'Level. I managed to get it but again, disappointingly, with a Grade E. I found out afterwards that I had been given the wrong syllabus to study - I had been working based on the wrong exam body. There were things in the exam that I had not studied and I knew were not in the syllabus, but I scraped an E and got the last place on the course - Molecular Biology - through clearing and blagging it with the Admissions Tutor. 

Fear and failure had become my best friends by this point, so it was of no real surprise that I had to leave my job as they wanted someone available during the day, not just the evenings. By this time I was getting round problems. I had to have a part-time job through uni to support myself, as I had left home for good and didn't go back, but as my course was 40+ hours a week it had to be an evening job. I eventually found one at a local nightclub. So in addition to doing one of the hardest courses there was, I also had to work in the evenings until 2am at the club and be ready for lectures at 9am every morning. 

I don't know where I got the energy to do this and keep going, but remember thinking it was normal to have to get past obstacles. I'm not sure where that belief to came from. All I had ever experienced was people telling me to give up and not bother as I couldn't do it. It was just down deep inside me I think. I got to the point where enough was enough, where I couldn't take it any more, I had to start kicking the doors and making them open, finding a way out of the situation I was in no matter what. I knew I could not quit, even when I had nothing left in me. I just had to regroup, give my head a wobble and keep going forward.

University suited me. I loved the subject but in the beginning of the first year I realised that because I wasn't naturally academically talented I was going to have to work harder than anybody else. So I did. During the holidays when all of my friends went back home I went to work in the university labs during the day - for nothing! My aim was to get proper experience working in a lab so I was ahead of the course and try and get some of the lecture notes in advance. That was very tough. I was very skint and needed money but stuck at the voluntary experience during the day and nightclub at night. Somehow I knew it would be important one day 

The obstacles kept coming. I failed an exam in the second year due to illness, but decided not to resit as I had achieved a high year grade without that exam and went straight through into the third year. I did not question whether this could have an impact later on, until a tutor told me on results day that they were sorry they could not give me the first class honours degree, even though I earned the points to have one, because it was faculty policy that first class honours students must pass every exam every year. I could have punched him. I would have re-sat the frigging exam if they had told me that. 

In the end though it worked in my favour. I passed my PhD interview because of the voluntary lab work and because the tutor was biased against first class honours students. In his experience, people who get first class degrees have an attitude problem because they think they are the bees' knees and behave accordingly. People who get a 2:1 work harder because they know they missed out by not working hard enough during their degree. Utter bollocks of course but it worked in my favour. I will say though that the other candidate was on my course and he did think he was the bees' knees, but that was because he was an arsehole not because he got a first!

So, I have unfinished business with my A' Levels and now is the time. I don't want my failures with my A' Levels to stand. I can do better.

I'm sitting Biology A' Level in May 2018, Chemistry in November 2018 and Maths in May 2019 and I am aiming for A* in every one. I decided to stagger them to give me the longest possible run up to the Maths A' Level and only have one set of exams to sit at at any given point in time. 

I'm sure the critics will turn up, even now nearly 30 years later. In fact, hello to all critics! I'm going to do this anyway, regardless of what you think, and I'm in no way interested in your opinion so please keep it to yourself. Save your breath to cool your dinner.

Head down, bum up. Here we go again. This time though, I'm going to enjoy it. 

 

Comments

[weenie]

Wow - massive respect for going for the A Levels again - I too struggled with the leap from GCSE to A Level and left 6th form with Cs in Biology and French. I failed my Maths with an 'N' and don't have the urge to ever ever study Maths again!

I then thought the jump from A Level to degree was also pretty tough (or maybe it was because of too much socialising?)

Anyway, I worked hard but not hard enough, only scraping a 2:2.

All the best with getting your straight As!

[Jolanda de Vries]

Hi there, I searched for a mail address to mail you but couldn't find it. So I hope you won't mind I contact you this way.
On your blog I found a post years back about Mia's Landliv. My friend and I followed that blog with much joy because we also love to quilt and crochet and she made such lovely things! But then her blog closed down and is only open for visiting to people who got an invitation. I would like to ask her for an invitation but can't find a way to contact her.
So here is my question... do you know a way to contact her? We would be so happy when we would be able to visit her blog again.
Thank you in advance and I hope you will contact me.
Btw... sorry my English isn't perfect. ;-))

[Zannah]

Great ambition! Just one thing - check the dates of the exams. As far as I know (secondary school teacher for 25 years), there are no November exams.

And make sure that you are doing the right syllabus!!! If you're doing Biology 2018 there will be two possible exams to take - legacy and new syllabus. If you're doing the new syllabus, get hold of this year's AS exam and examiner's report (will come out in August) and read in detail - it will flag up areas to focus on.

Zannah

[Steel]

Thanks Weenie! I made a start a couple of weeks ago and it seems ok at the moment. Maths is hard but doable with lots of practice questions, but with the biology and chemistry it seems to be more a case of remembering than starting from scratch. That takes the sting out of it a bit!

Also, having the internet around is fantastic. Wasn't really around in my A'Level days but some of the digital resources available now is amazing!

[Steel]

Thanks for the heads-up Zannah. I'm doing the CIE exam board, and they apparently do have two sets of exams a year. I've been speaking to a tutorial college who are going to enter me into the exams, and as far as I'm aware I will be doing the new linear exams, but again, I will ask again to double check. The original plan was for me to do everything in May 2019, but I don't want the pressure of sitting all of those exams in one of my busiest working month of the year for my employer, but I changed my mind recently. I had forgotten that some of them may be the legacy, not new, exams. Thanks again for the info.

[Steel]

Hi Jolanda, your English is very good!

I get a few people ask me about Mias Landliv every year. I don't have any way of contacting the owner of the Mias Landliv blog. I get the same message as you when I have tried to access it before and there appears no way of requesting an invitation. That's why i took it off my blogroll in the end. I believe the owner had a lot of legal problems that her blog was caught up in and took it private for that reason.Sorry I can't be of more help.

[Jolanda de Vries]

Thank you very much for answering my question. I guess there is no way to contact Mia then. Well you never know... maybe she reads this comment. :-)
Have a nice day and if I do find a way to contact Mia I will let you know.