Life lessons...

I just want to start off by giving a brief introduction to myself. I’m from the UK, I’m 26 years old and I work in Financial Services at one of the Big 4. I’m from a working class background and I’ve worked hard to get where I am today. I’ve learnt some valuable things along the way and I’ve started this series of posts to share some of the insights I’ve accrued. This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this so I’m hoping this (and subsequent) post(s) outlining some of the experiences I’ve had over the 26 years of my life will be somewhat insightful to the general public. If these posts help even 1 person, I’ll consider the time spent writing this, time well spent.

I'll be writing about careers, education, saving money and travelling predominantly. I also do quite a bit of Kickboxing, so I might sneak in something about that too!

Now, where to begin? With it being A level results day today, it’s got me feeling nostalgic about my own results day all those years ago. Having said that I think university and the decision whether to pursue higher education or not is a good a topic as any to start. If you think about it, this is probably the first time you make a serious decision for yourself, a decision that will be pivotal to the direction your life will ultimately take you.

I want to keep this article to the point so I won’t bore you with the granular details, what I will say however is that whatever decision you make, make sure you thoroughly try and understand what the long term impacts of that choice will be. I got a piece of advice once, it was probably the most basic piece of advice anyone could ever give, but at the same time, I found it to be the most powerful piece of advice ever given to me. Do you know what the advice was? – “always be prepared”. It’s common sense, I mean, no one wants to go into a situation that they’re not prepared for, but hearing someone say the words out loud really resonates and sinks in. I now always try my best to always be prepared for anything, be it at a meeting at work, I sit down 15 minutes beforehand and go through the agenda, writing down all points I want to make and responses to anything the other party may ask me, or it could be for a job interview, clearly writing down all of my skills and experiences, as well as thorough research as to why the company and role is right for me. For this particular example, I try to get this done days before so that I have plenty of time to review my notes and allow the salient points to really stick with me.

I digress, back to the main topic at hand. Sometimes in life plan A doesn’t work so you need to look at a Plan B. I’ve learnt that there are always ways people can “bypass the system” and get to where they want to be through alternative channels. If you really want to get into a university and feel that the course is too competitive, or that your grades won’t be good enough, why not apply to a less popular course with lower entry requirements, in most occasions, this will definitely increase your chances of getting into said university. Once you’ve started the course, you then have the opportunity to change courses within the first few weeks. Once you’ve got your foot in the door and have been accepted, moving around and finding what you really want to do becomes a lot easier. Worse comes to worst, you complete the first year and can typically easily move after that (given you pass the first year). Obviously this isn’t possible with really specialist courses such as medicine, but I’ve seen a lot of friends do it with other courses such as Economics, History, Maths, etc. For example, a friend of mine applied to the London School of Economics for the BSc Economics with Economic History course as he knew the Economics course was extremely competitive. He got accepted into the Economics with Economic History course and within the first 2 weeks, handed in a transfer request and got it approved to move to straight Economics soon after.

A caveat to this is that it’s obviously not a guaranteed way to get onto a course so please do not rely on doing this method, make a calculated decision what your chances are on getting on your preferred course and whether you think this method would be the best way forward your yourself. This is also based on my experience in the UK, I'm not certain on how the education system works in other places such as America, but I'm sure the premise is still somewhat applicable.

Anyway, good luck to everyone who's getting their results today!