[Closed] 2nd chance - you're leaving school this summer results in hand

Learn the difference between knowing your sh*t and knowing you're sh*t 😉

Cathy Robertson

Would do exactly the same again.  Got plenty of time to travel once I had a degree, a job and cash.

Obviously going to depend on the degree and at the time we even got student grants to do it but I would still do the same this time around.

edit:  Google Images Cathy Robertson and wonders which one it was...

I went travelling after Uni but wish I went before instead/aswell.  Eurail pass around europe at 18/19 would have been jyst the thing to get me on the straight and narrow.

Also i lived at home whilst at uni to save money which in hindsight was a mistake.

I'd drop the 'and chemistry' bit from my degree and just do Chen Eng. The reality was we ended up doing more like 75% of each degree rather than 50/50!

OK. So the economy tanked which made work a bit tricky for the first few years, then the oil price tanked which was the final nail in the coffin, but that was out of my hands. I'd like to have gone traveling, but to be honest I can't see 18yr old me having much clue where he wanted to go anyway, so would probably have ended up bored somewhere anyway. And a year later the economy was much worse so I'd have really struggled.

And all the usual more work, girls and bike riding, less drinking and wasting time.

Less drinking.

18yo me could not have gone travelling and the uni I went to and course I did was worth it. I would recommend to my younger self to be more of a whore though 🙂 there are only so many years you can get away with that.

not sure if I could afford it now though

I would have liked to have travelled, but wouldn't have been able to fund it, and not really have the personality to just turn up and get work.

I left school at 16 and started working shit manual jobs because that's all there was. So probably would do a btec in electronics (practical rather than academic would have suited me better then) and then go to university. After uni would probably have been a better time to travel.

oh and I would probably avoid knife fights when only the other person has a knife.

Don't walk away from the sponsorship deal, it really doesn't matter what degree you have and the extra £1500pa would be nice - oh and it's a great idea to borrow some cash off your grandad to buy a house for your uni years ☺️

*googles*  Cathy Robertson

I can see why

To bastardise Eric Morecambe - I had all the right experiences, just not necessarily in the right order.

And I'd have in some way, any way, got on the property ladder 8 or 9 years before I did.

I took a year out travelling before Uni and had accepted my place at Uni so I was happy with that.  Worked on Camp America, then travelled round the US and then travelled around Oz and NZ for a couple of months.  Fantastic life experience before University!  Still meant that studying was about number ten on my priority list at Uni 🙂 but no regrets at all..

Less drugs. No, way less drugs and booze and also college then Uni. The manual jobs and then just drifting in to different work approach to my working life has left me pretty skint and with no career at 41 😕

That Cathy is one fine looking lady

Got counselling to hopefully avert the next couple of decades of mental health ups and downs

I don't regret my uni choice or anything but I wish I'd taken a year out first, not to go travelling or anything as I had no money and no clue, but just to basically not be such a child when I went to uni and make more of it.

(In theory, I'd like to somehow change my entire life direction in some sort of mechanical engineery direction as I discovered later in life that I love pottering with that sort of thing; but realism kicks in, I don't have that sort of latent numeracy that makes a decent engineer so I'd have either failed or sucked at it.)

Not bothered with A levels or uni. Just gone straight into the industry that I'm in now. I'd have more money, more knowledge, less mortgage and one of those gold plated final salary pensions I'm so envious of.

Would have stayed on to do A Levels rather then go to college.  I left to mainly escape the bullies that had taunted me all the way through high school, they left too and went to the same college I chose.  Cue 2 years of further hell.  I would have then not have gone for a crap university and my life would have gone in a completely different direction.

I recently found out that if I'd gone to 6th form a certain young lady would have asked me out when we arrived on the first day as our paths never crossed over that summer.  We did see each other a few years later but by then I was seeing someone else so it remained a 'What if..'  Pity as I really, really liked her!

But then it's not good to look back and wonder, too many ways to depress yourself.

Unless we can take our experience and life lessons back with us then I suppose I would just go down the same route as I did as I wouldn't know any better.

If on the other hand we can take our experience back with us then I'd invest every penny I could get my hands on in all the best perfoming companies of that period and I'd now be the biggest sugar daddy going.

Same again, pretty much exactly the same route and course too. I have a "thing" for Finance and a "thing" for Change Process, both of which were covered extensively in my degree of Economics.

I really enjoyed learning, theorising and putting all that into practice and I've certainly enjoyed the rewards. I'm debt free and have been for well over 10 years.

The only change, God forgive me for this, is that I wish I'd have slept around a bit more...

I was always  (still am) an honourable type and when chances or opportunities have come my way I've always turned them down.. I met my wife at Uni and she is a mirror image of me but has tits.. which is satisfyingly reassuring. Yet at Uni my mates slept around and Yomped with pretty much anyone they wanted to pick up (or be picked up)

Me, I sat on the sidelines mumbling under my breath at how uncouth it all was and where were their morals and how could they fall out of bed with one girl the night before to end up in another bed a week later..

But the experience of Uni was for me just fabulous... It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders throughout the A Level era, I was free to choose what/when and with whom to mix and make friends and I loved it.. I've never been a big drinker, a couple of pints a week max but entering Uni I met some like minded folks who, like me, had similar outlooks.. which was so refreshing.

I'd choose the same path, just maybe experimented a bit more on the sex front...

Cathy Robertson

not from the Lincoln area are you?

Unless we can take our experience and life lessons back with us

Exactly! Unless I knew what I know now (AVOID I.T. !) I'd still not know wtf to do - get involved in music, fail and screw my whole future up! Gotta laugh so 😆

I either would've/should've joined the Navy or the RAF. Left school at 15 with no exam results but did a vehicle mechanics apprenticeship with a local authority. I should also NOT have gone self employed as a petrol station owner!!

Uni in 1972? that was for posh people.

I'd have joined the Paras, done a stint and then gone to Uni.

Instead now, I find myself wondering whether I should join the London Regiment and put up with a battle hardened lunatic mate taking the piss.

I would have never written my previous reply to this.....

I'd do the same, maybe try and go to a better Uni which my grades would certainly have allowed. I'd  try to be a bit more focussed on the work and pushed into research more....if I went to a different uni though the drugs and women might be different, so nah...I'd do it the same!!!

I should not have bother with uni or probably my a levels and just done an apprenticeship and got a proper trade , but they were not the do e thing at the time.

But I can’t complain life’s mostly good

i finished my GCSE's and spent the next 2 weeks helping set up the 1996 National MTB Champs at Eastridge.  Marking out the courses, clearing cows out of the camping fields, good fun. In fact I'm wearing one of my 'marshall' t-shirts as i type 🙂

After that summer, going to 6th form i would:

ask Laurel out
not get championship manager 98
work a lot harder on my music
take a year out before uni and get a job, earn some money, do a bit of travelling. But i was pretty keen to get the hell out of Shrewsbury
ask Roz out. Or Helena. I never was any good at asking people out.

I should not have bother with uni or probably my a levels and just done an apprenticeship and got a proper trade , but they were not the do e thing at the time.

No, you should still have gone to uni but maybe done English language instead? 😉

Meh, maybe there's a few mistakes I've made along the way, mostly with women, I'm not as well off as some of my mates (by a long way, in some cases) but my wife & kids are freaking ace, so I'll stick

Few regrets in life.

I would take a year out to travel the world prior to doing same uni course.

I'd have taken that job offer in Canada....

Joined the navy

Taken my dad up on the offer of a year out working before Uni and probably not done Biochemistry either. Mind you, if i had taken that job, I'd probably not have come back from Australia.

I would of taken cycling more seriously. At 15 I could ride a lumpy 10 in around 21 minutes (on a standard road bike). At the time I had no idea how good that was, and then discovered pubs, girls, drugs, clubs and all those other exciting things that are not compatible with sporting performance.

Work wise I've done a lot better than my paltry 5 standard grades would suggest I was going to. Starting a degree in September at 43, once it's finished my mortgage will be gone with it, never been out of a job, have my family, health and am happy, can't complain.

I genuinely dunno if I'd do anything different, I was due to go into the navy just after I got my apprenticeship, I wonder where I'd be now sometimes, but more out of nosiness than some misty-eyed view of forces life and what ifs...

Then my A-Level results would still have sucked and I'd still be best off working for a few years then going to uni. There was a half option to go and work at a Marina in Tasmania which I'd be interested in, but I've never really been a 'move to the otherside of the planet' kind of guy. I'd also not have met my wife which would have been a bad thing.

Wish i’d learned to sing instead of play drums. A microphone takes up a lot less space than a drum kit

oh, that & followed my sister to Canada. Wouldn’t have met mrs_d though

I’d do pretty much the same thing again.

I took a “year out” before Uni.

Went to Austria at 18 as a starting point to travel round Europe. Ended up coming home when I was 30.

Worked as a Ski Instructor for quite a few years, and worked with people like Uli Spiess and Peter Habeler who where both legends to me as a boy (and still are having known them) . So I couldn’t change that part as it made me who I am

The rest has been ups and downs, but on a big up for the last few years and long may it continue. Lovely family and enjoying life immensely.

Wouldn’t change a minute of it.

Probably wouldn’t change anything. Left school absolutely no interest in going to university and probably wasted time even doing a levels, got a job and things have worked out pretty good.

I just wish I had have been a bit calmer. I thought that if I didn’t do everything really quickly and in the right order, it would all fall apart.

I also wish I had have invested in property earlier.

leave the UK...

Med school.

I wish someone had taken me aside and said do not listen to a single word your parents say.

When I was young I listened to them with question but they got a lot wrong.