Life

Lynette Fay: I had no idea how much my post-A-level decisions would shape me

Those tears of joy and sadness will have been shed a thousand times over at this point. Congratulations to those who have excelled, but to those who haven’t done as well as they would have liked to, please don’t despair

Lynette Fay

Lynette Fay

Lynette is an award winning presenter and producer, working in television and radio. Hailing from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, she is a weekly columnist with The Irish News.

Emma Meek, Lauren Verner and Courtney Campbell of Abbey Community College in Newtownabbey were among the thousands of 18-year-olds who got their A-level results on Thursday. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire
Emma Meek, Lauren Verner and Courtney Campbell of Abbey Community College in Newtownabbey were among the thousands of 18-year-olds who got their A-level results on Thursday. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire Emma Meek, Lauren Verner and Courtney Campbell of Abbey Community College in Newtownabbey were among the thousands of 18-year-olds who got their A-level results on Thursday. Picture by Niall Carson/PA Wire

WEEK 2 of Rann na Feirste ’96. Event hough we had officially left school, a couple of friends and I attended the August course in the Gaeltacht, Irish college in Donegal. Nerds.

On the second Thursday morning of the course, we woke to Bean an Tí (the woman of the house) singing her heart out in the kitchen, as usual. We had been up late the night before, chatting, trying to calm the nerves. I was waiting on my A-level results.

In 1996, to receive said results we had made the sophisticated advance arrangement of being allowed a personal phone call to the house we were staying in. My mummy had the phone number and was to call the minute the postman arrived with the results letter.

Two years previously, in a different Irish college, Machaire Rabhartaigh, a group of us were piled into the bus and driven in the rain to the phone box. One by one we proceeded to phone home and receive our results.

The memory of the GCSE results day is etched in my mind – tears of joy, of sadness. I had a good day at the office. But A-levels were a different gravy; I didn’t like studying for them and knew that I hadn’t worked to my full potential. I was dreading the phone call from home.

We went to class that morning, came home at dinner time. (In good old country style, dinner time on the Gaeltacht courses was at 1pm – we had ‘tea’ in the evenings.) The phone call came shortly after one.

My results were good. I got enough to get into the degree course I had chosen to pursue but I wasn’t happy. I succumbed to peer pressure and gave myself a very hard time about that, unnecessarily.

As is still the case, 16-year-olds come under extraordinary pressure to choose subjects to study in detail at A-level. It is difficult to choose subjects which will ultimately provide many options at degree level, presuming that a degree is the path you choose.

Thousands of 18-year-olds received their results on Thursday. Those tears of joy and sadness will have been shed a thousand times over at this point. Congratulations to those who have excelled, but to those who haven’t done as well as they would have liked to, please don’t despair.

There is no way in this world that you can have your life decided and sorted when you're aged 18. Twenty three years post A-level results day, I still don’t have the answers. It’s a funny world of highs and lows and every experience brings with it a lesson learned.

I found out just this week what exact grades my friends’ daughter got in her A-levels some years ago. She didn’t do as well as expected but got into a degree course, through clearing, and is now a qualified teacher. Thankfully she embraced the opportunity she was given to study at third level. She worked hard at university, she had a part time job, she took on extra responsibility on campus. She made the most of it.

In hindsight, although that summer of 96 was full of anxiety ahead of results day, when I knew what I was dealing with, I could make definite decisions about my future. I had no idea at the time just how much those decisions would shape me personally and professionally.

I decided to head to the wild west. We made a family day trip to Galway in late August to finalise accommodation for my first year. I had never been to Galway. There was no such thing as the internet so I couldn't research it in any detail. All I had to go on were the brochures I had requested to be sent to me by post a couple of months earlier.

As it turns out, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Many thought that I was crazy, and weren’t afraid to share their opinion with me – as if I wasn’t overwhelmed enough.

People feel the need to share their opinion on our choices all the time, especially with seminal moments in life. Advice that isn’t requested can be hard to listen to.

Good luck to all who have decisions to make this week. It is an important time, but it’s just a stepping stone.