How To Reduce A-Level Result Nerves

If, like myself you finished your A2 year at college this summer and are anticipating collecting your results next week, to move onto the next stage of your life this post might help those nerves. Whether or not you're going onto university in September, I'd like to think everyone finishing their A-Levels is quite anxious to find out how well they did. I'll admit now, I'm rather anxious myself purely because I'm hoping to go onto a rather prestigious university for the subject I'm studying. I thought I'd put together a little list of tips that can help you calm down that stress, as the days get closer and closer more people are gonna be feeling the pressure.  

1. Don't look back at your class notes now

I'm guilty of this. As a precaution of having to redo any of my exams from this year (hopefully not!) I've stored away all of my class notes for each topic and put them into a huge box until it's actually results day. As the day comes closer, more people start to go over the exam questions and if you've got your notes to hand, it's tempting to notice things you've missed out or not explained fully. This is a one way ticket to unnecessary stress, there's no way for you to change your answers now so please don't start uprooting your notes.

2. Surround yourself with your college friends

By now most people have finished their holiday breaks, due to the fact that results day is so close. Now is the time to start rekindling with your college friends, the likelihood is after results people are going to be extremely busy sorting out university bits and bobs. I've already started the process of throwing away old things and slowly started to make mental notes of things I'll be taking for my halls room, but some people wouldn't of started this yet which can be quite lengthly. Try and squeeze in a few days with various friends you've made from the two years (and your high school friends)  and do exciting activities together, to ensure you've got some good memories left together before you all depart. 

3. Finish that book you've had for months

After being a huge English Literature nerd throughout high school and especially during my two years of college, I've naturally adapted myself into a book worm. For that same fact, I think it's going to be quite a shock to my system when I transition into university and won't be studying/reading period texts anymore. I have quite a few physical books to hand as well as on my kindle, that I've never had time to fully enjoy so why not read them now. We all know the abilities a good story line can hold over people and if the pressures are too much you can always distract yourself with a new book. So far this summer I've managed to read two books completely, I'm half way through another and just last night started one other too.

4. Figure out who you want to be

I'd like to clear up first, that I'm not talking about completely abandoning everything your stand for and embody to become fake but instead try and fine tune yourself. I am a strong believer in figuring out who you want to be, in aid to better your life and those who you meet. Obviously the older you get, the more opportunities you're faced with that help you grow and develop as a person. But I think the transition from living in your hometown to a new town/city is the perfect time to start asking yourself who you are. Personally over the last two years I've changed not only in appearance but how I portray myself to others along with my personality and I tend to push myself to perfect this 'new way' the best I can. The easiest and most distracting way to start this off is to clear your wardrobe and room out, figure out what best represents you and run with it.

I hope these little tips can help you all distract yourself for a couple of hours in the build up to the biggest day in your lives so far. I'd like to remind anybody reading that no matter what grades you get on the day, that they do not define you as a person and there is plenty of time to experience the student lifestyle at university. If you've got any other tips then don't hesitate to leave them down below in the comments, good luck everybody! 

Update || College, University, Leaving Home, Blogging etc

    For those of you who follow me on Instagram and Twitter or watch my Youtube videos (click the words for direct links) then you'll know in the past month and a half I've been worked off my feet revising for my A-Level exams. And I'm glad to say that I sat my final exam on June 16th, therefore I'm now a free agent for three and a half months! I'm possibly going to be going down London for two weeks of work experience but it's still in the consideration process, but besides that I have a completely free summer which I'm hoping to dedicate to blogging more regularly. I'm really happy about this, and to show my excitement here's a picture of me with loads of pigeons in Manchester hah!

    So like I said before, I've completed my two years at college studying English Language, Sociology and English Literature (if you was interested) and now the next step for me in getting into University. Results day in the UK is around mid-end of August, which is something silly like 180 days away so until then I won't know whether or not I've got into my firm and insurance University (fingers crossed!). But until then I'd like to make a conscious effort of blogging more regularly because I really take pride in my writing, and it'll just get me into the swing of things again in time for University considering I'm studying Journalism.

    Even though it's a couple of months away, I'm considering doing either a mini Youtube series or just blogging about it (or maybe even both if you're lucky) regarding leaving home and going to University, because for everybody it's a new experience and I think it'd be quite interesting to watch. If you're interested in something similar like that in the future, then just let me know in the comment section, or just tweet me! But yeah, I hope that little update has covered all the bases for you all, I'm going watching The Fault In Our Stars tomorrow (Thursday) so I'll have a little review up of that on Friday.

Starting Off In College | Expectations & Realities

    If you're a regular viewer to my Youtube videos, which I will link down below you will know I started college for the first time on Wednesday 5th of September at a completely different college in compassion to my usual friendship group. For those who are wondering, I have kept contact with 2 people so far from that group out of the total of 6 roughly. I however feel going to a different college gives you the kick to meet new friends or revisit old friendships to those who attended the same High School as yourself.

    The subjects I finally chose for the 2 year course are English Literature, English Language, Sociology and at the moment Maths GCSE. With exam grade boundaries increasing dramatically I just fell short of passing my Maths exam so I will be resitting that in my first year of college at GCSE level. Once that is sorted, and I have hopefully gained those extra few marks I shall be taking up either Media or Film Studies (I think Film more) as an AS course which is half of an A-Level.

    Looking at my general demographic of blog readers, I've noticed just over half of those from The United States of Amercia, the education system over there is alien to me in the UK so the sum up college for those outside the UK; you attend college at the age of 16/17 till 18. You can resit your first year in certain colleges so whereas mostly students are in that age bracket, a few students may be 18/19.

    Again going into a completely new environment I was unable to determine what aspects might occur regarding transport systems, teacher to student interaction and how subjects would be taught. One of the subjects, Sociology is a new subject to me but again this is due to my high school not having the course as an option but it slowly is becoming more popular through more and more high schools across the UK.

    During the first day of college you meet with your PT (personal tutor) and do a series of team building activities with a variety of students in your year group, being all in the same boat so to speak everyone is relatively quiet to start off with. This is completely natural so if you follow this pattern or find it strange you have the opportunity to break the ice. The day went pretty smoothly and made initial friendships with both boys and girls.

    Starting mid week, I have only attended 3 days of college 2 of them official educational days which consisted of all my subjects. Every single teacher I have is a wonder, answering questions and making sure you understand what course you throwing yourself into. I know this has been a relatively long post but I hope you can understand that even though you maybe anxious as to occurrences, if you just relax everything will go fine. 

    I hope everybody that has started either high school, college, university or going into their final years of all them forms of education the best of luck as you need to take these years all seriously to ensure for a financially safe future. Later on into the year, I will so a 4 month assessment of each subject to give you a more in depth knowledge of said subjects at AS level. 

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