Nerd Revert

As a child, I was super smart. Smart in the way that was depicted on Malcolm in the Middle, or through personal illustrated life-spiration Lisa Simpson. I liked to read and I was naturally disposed to understand things that were seen as difficult for other kids my age. I flew through secondary school – which is like all of middle school and half of high school – like everyone knew I would. It was really no big deal, although I was nervous and barely spoke to anyone for the entire year leading up to GCSEs, our big final exams. I got the grades to go to sixth form college, to get my grades to go to university. I had a plan and it was going to be followed to the letter and I was going to go do either medicine or English literature, whichever one I fancied. In hindsight, this is the most offensively privileged scope of thoughts I have ever had and will ever have, but I had nothing to counteract these thoughts because it had been so easy before.

My first year of college was brilliant. I met lots of like-minded people and actually enjoyed going to this place of education every day, a feeling I hadn’t had for four years. However, I completely tanked when it came to work. My highest grade was a B, in English literature. I was refused entry to two of my four classes that I was going to take in the next year. I had to take another first-year class just to make up the quota. It was horrifying and humiliating, for someone who glided through the first twelve years of education, to literally stop functioning. It was like a part of my personality had been extracted during the night by my enemies in order to watch me suffer from the other side of the canteen.

The worst part was that I couldn’t explain any of this in the correct way to my parents. My parents, who had watched this child of theirs, coast all of her life, who achieved Bs with no revision and accepted praise with a pleasant shrug of the shoulders. University had been on the cards since I was five. Five years-old. This is not an exaggeration: I viewed all of my years in school as preparation for further education. They were astonished to find their daughter hanging on to her carefully orchestrated plan by splitting fingernails.

In the second year of college, I tried so hard. I took resits and went to dinnertime prep classes. Secondary reading was bumped up to primary reading. But applying for university still seemed wrong. I didn’t deserve it like I had done a year ago. I figured out a long time before I came to college that I didn’t want to be a doctor, and that I just wanted to be in Green Wing (the best British comedy from the past ten years, FYI). I actually wanted to write, but no one who enjoys being taken seriously would dare say that in the small industrial town where I lived. Even so, was I going to take the chance of applying for university to do English, and run the risk of failing? I cried for a week over my first year results, was I really going to put myself through that much stress in order to maybe get into university?

I did apply, and the entry requirements scared the living Christ out of me. I calculated what I needed, and it was going to be really hard. But if I didn’t think university was going to be hard, I probably shouldn’t apply. I took risks when applying for my A-Levels and I was still standing, thereabouts. So I submitted to five universities and hid under my covers for the next month.

Three years later, I graduated with a 2:1 in English and Creative Writing from a good university. It’s difficult to put it into words how much I need people to know that having a rough patch isn’t the end of the world. It may make you thirsty for success; it could throw you onto a different path altogether. It might not come at a time when you can afford to weigh your options; you might not even get options. But you should always know that the only person that you need to please is you. If I didn’t go to university because my parents wanted me to go, I picked it because I’ve always really wanted to go to university. I didn’t choose English because my parents, their parents and their parents before them did it. I chose it because I like writing and reading and being creative.

If you are in a tight spot, I have three tips. Take a nice deep breath – maybes I’ve been brainwashed by cheesy (read: awesome) TV shows and 80s coming-of-age films, but deep breaths instil calm and help you to prioritise. Number two: think about you. If it doesn’t suit you, if it’s something you feel iffy about, don’t choose it. You are the most important person in your life, and if you choose unwisely, the only person it will affect in the long-term is you. Know that you are worthy. Number three: remember exactly that. The rest is totally up to you.  I graduated the other week and my mother cried and my father did his best David Bailey impersonation all day to document my triumph.

A D in Maths and a U in Chemistry did not ruin my life, neither would have not applying for university. But I could have missed out on the best three years of my life, and that would have truly been worse.