My son is 17. He’s in 6th Form, studying for his A levels.
Except, that’s the thing – he’s not really. Studying, that is.
Now I know from experience that A levels are probably the most important stage of a student’s academic life. The results from A levels have a direct impact on the whole of the rest of a person’s academic life and beyond. Good A level grades and the choice of universities and courses is vast. Get 4 A*s and you can have the pick of the lot! Oxford? Cambridge? London School of Economics? And you can pick your course. Want to study something in demand at a prestigious university? You can do it.
The flip side is that with much lower grades, although you will still get into a university, your choice of where and what you can study become much more limited. And let’s face it, a degree from Oxford in Mathematics is likely to get you in front of more interview panels for the best paid careers than, say, a degree in Film Studies from the University of Scunthorpe!
In the past a university degree got you places. Recent studies show that these days many university courses don’t actually advance students past the point they would have been had they worked for the duration of their course and gained experience instead of qualifications.
And then there is the cost. Almost £10,000 a year in tuition fees and another similar amount for accommodation and a three year degree will set you back at least £60,000.
And the fees are the same whether you study at Cambridge or Scunthorpe. So even if you do see the value in a university education, one of those represents much better value for money than the other!
As well as being the most important, A levels are undoubtedly the hardest stage of a student’s academic life. And right at the time when everything else hits you too – learning to drive, relationships, the transition from dependence to independence, from childhood to adulthood, self-identity, parties, booze and all things cool! Seriously, if you started from scratch there is no way you’d pick this stage of a person’s life to heap the pressure of some seriously hard learning and exams onto them!
But that’s the system, and however broken, we don’t have a choice about how we deal with it.
OK, so it’s possible to do terribly at A level and then either resit or return to study later in life, but that adds yet more difficulty. Trying to study for exams in later life, with the pressures of adulthood and all the responsibilities that brings, is an uphill journey. It’s why so many people get stuck in a rut and settle for less than they are capable of.
And I don’t want that for my son.
Yet I have to remember that it’s not about what I want. It’s his life, not mine. It’s for him to make his own decisions and chart his own path. I can advise him and guide him and help him but I can’t live his life for him. When he was a child I would try and stop him from falling down. If he did and he scraped his knees then I would be there to kiss them better. But I had to let him learn to walk. It is really no different now he is approaching adulthood. I can give him the benefit of my wisdom and advice, but I can’t make him take it.
And that is the dilemma. Do I ride his case and try and force him to study, knowing that this is the most important time of his academic life, or do I trust that he will work shit out for himself and leave him to it? Leave him to become the person that he wants to be, rather than the person that I – with my years of experience – would be if I were him.
And the key difference there is the “years of experience”. When I look back to how I was when I was 17, was I really so different?
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