Dropping out of my A-levels was the best decision I ever made – here’s why

Four years ago I was waiting for AS-level results day with incredible nervousness. I was nervous less because of the results I would see on the sheet of paper, but more because it was the day I would tell my family and my teachers that I was dropping out of college – for good.

The first thing I felt, and I felt it overwhelmingly and almost constantly, was like a massive disappointment. I was less disappointed in myself and more disappointed that I had let my family down. None of my parents and neither of my grandparents went to university and I think there was a lot of hope that I, as my parent’s first-born child, would get into uni, get a good degree and get a good job, as the line goes.

And before my year at college, I think I was in many ways trying to live that dream. Since the age of nine my heart was set on studying English Literature at university and I loved to write – poems, stories, even essays. I always did my homework, got good grades in my GCSEs and applied and got into a competitive college in London, rather than staying on for sixth form with most of my school friends.

Then came college. I know they say the jump from GCSE to A-levels is hard, and I really felt that jump. Or more accurately – I felt the way it imposed on my free time. I had gotten heavily involved in campaigning over my summer holiday and like many people who have a “hobby” outside of their working days, I struggled to balance what I enjoyed with my studies.

At the same time, my mental health began to rapidly decline. I felt like I didn’t fit into the cliquey atmosphere at the college and this only heightened my social anxiety. I began to go for long walks or lock myself in toilet cubicles on my free periods just so that I wouldn’t have to bump into anyone I knew. This meant I was never in the library – never studying or completing essays, and it made the work pile up pretty fast.

As well as my anxiety increasing, I started experiencing bad depression – I didn’t want to get up in the mornings and frequently missed college. I had always struggled with hallucinations and bad dreams when I was younger, but these also got worse, and I found new ways to self-harm and thought regularly about suicide. Getting to class every day felt like a huge struggle, let alone doing all the extra work outside of it.

Over the course of the year I realised campaigning was what I woke up for, not college. This forced me to realise I had to prioritise my happiness. I think it saved my life.

I know it sounds pretty grim, but I spent the last few months before my exams thinking about my own death. When we die, people remember us for the people we were – the good qualities of our characters. Nobody has their A-level results printed on their gravestone – or any academic achievements for that matter. Knowing this is what gave me the strength to believe my life was more than what grades I did – or didn’t – get in college.

But despite knowing that I needed to drop out and try to focus on other ways to make my life work, I still felt pressure – from parents, teachers and society – to just “buckle down and get those grades”. When I left college, I felt the sense of disappointment from all sides and even though it’s lessened now, I still feel an overwhelming sense of guilt when I look back at my college years. I feel like I let everyone down.

I dossed around for a long time after college before I secured an internship at a climate change charity. I worked there, and managed after to do some other work in campaigning. Then I left the country for a few months to clear my head and focus on writing, the other of my big passions. I freelanced for a while and was on really low pay. But the writing and campaigning work paid off and I managed to get a journalism apprenticeship, which is how I’m writing this piece right now.

I know I was, and still am, incredibly lucky. We’re told pretty much from the day we start school that we need to work hard, get good grades and go to uni – but it’s not always that simple. University is ridiculously expensive, exams really aren’t for everyone and someone’s passions might lie outside institutionalised education. As the saying goes, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Historically grades have meant a lot in terms of employment – but that is frequently changing. There are more and more apprenticeships available, and many jobs now care more about experience than qualifications, which is how I’ve managed to get into writing and campaigning full time.

We focus so much on grades as signifiers for our worth and success, but our worth and success is so much more than letters on a sheet of paper.

I know that results day will be a really important day for many – but if you don’t get the grades you want, or you fail, or you leave college altogether, don’t beat yourself up – it’s going to be okay.