The Buildup to Results

By Finlay

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During the Summer, after finishing school for good, many people express their concerns and anxieties when it comes to receiving results which will allow you to leap to the next step of your life. Am I going to get into the college I want to go to? Is my future going to be impacted if I mess up an exam? Are people going to ask me the grades I got? These are all questions I worked myself up about after leaving school. Even now, August 12th, the date of my results, is continuously in the back of my mind as something to feel uneasy and nervous about. 

For me, if I ever tried to speak to anybody about my worries for oncoming Results Day I would get told things like “Exams aren’t the be-all and end-all, Fin” or “You have nothing to worry about Fin, you’re a smart lad”. This really annoyed me, especially considering my education was severely influenced by Covid and we had missed out on weeks at a time of learning due to having to self-isolate. My school barely supported me and constantly left our year in the dark when it came to mock exams, waiting for weeks at a time to notify us about upcoming exams and almost purposely making us even more stressed and concerned about the grades we would receive in the Summer. 

Recently, doing things I enjoy have slightly relieved my worries and concerns despite them still faintly being there in the back of my head; personally, these are things like:

• going for walks
  
• listening to music 
  
• spending time outside in the recent heatwave
  
• going to work, talking to customers and making friends with my colleagues 
  
• speaking to people and who I haven’t spoken to in a while about my experiences and feelings 
  

Even talking to family has helped, because realistically, as my family have explained, you can’t change the past; as long as you’ve done your best then you’ve got nothing to worry about. 

Another problem which people usually have is when it comes to people asking questions about your grades. This is because it can be seen as invasive, rude and intimidating. Not only that, but a usual problem of mine when I was at school was the issue of having to hear other people’s grades and see them plastered all over social media. This was because I would constantly compare myself to others after receiving individual exam results back when I was still at school and making myself feel bad and almost as if I have to do as well as other people around me. This was particularly the case in my science class as everyone in there with the exception of me were fairly good at maths and could handle the big equations whereas I couldn’t. 

However, the biggest thing I look back on now is that science just isn’t for me and I don’t need it to get to the next step in my school life. If you are as concerned about your results as me two months ago and are attending college next year, you can always visit the college website or email them to ask about the support available to people who don’t get the grades they want or need. More often than not, colleges have plans in place for students to resit exams and achieve better results than the ones they receive in August. 

Thank you so much for reading this article and I hope your results are what you want them to be. Always remember that there are alternative options available too like the ones I have mentioned. Good luck!