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My journey to Surrey
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8 hours ago
8h ago
My goal is to get AAB (at least) at the end of A levels next year and study Media, Culture and Society at Surrey.I received AABC at AS level, FINALLY doing subjects I really loved. I'm already a blogger on WordPress www.journalsofdami.wordpress.com but being able to talk more about school and my journey into A levels is something I definitely want to share. So I thought I'd share my honest AS level results day to begin my first blog post on here :H I am a massive stationary hauler and organiser so there'll be a LOT of pictures of that as well as me at 3am reading :$
MY 2016 AS LEVELS RESULTS DAY
The 18th of August. I had it in my calendar and all over the house. Literally, my school books were still around my room and family members brought it up every other day. Sitting on my bed, I was scrolling through TheStudentRoom, a brilliant website for students to join forums for their subjects as well as gain further information about school. People were freaking out and people were confident. Me? My thoughts were rolling, 100 thoughts per minute. I had a back up plan, I wasn’t expecting to do well because who doesn’t think that the days leading up to a hella important day? I wrote down grades I realistically believed I would receive, I knew I worked hard and people kept telling me I had but only me, myself and I know my true academic abilities. Anyway, with my realistic grades I kept reading positive posts, lifting my spirits by 1% but still it was an upgrade.
Word of advice for students, don’t go with your parents. My parents are very supportive but I didn’t know how I would react, plus I had everything planned out and I just wanted them a phone call away rather than next to me. So off my parents and brother Demi, left for work. My friends Victoria and Ebony and I were going to meet an hour before the school opened at 10 AM. I wanted to listen to my music as it always put me in a good mood, the songs above are the ones I listened to practically on repeat throughout my 30 minute walk. I strolled, I didn’t walk. I made sure every step mattered. But no matter how slow I could have walked I still turned up outside the school gates and a handful of year 12’s and 13’s and uber smart Year 11’s were collecting their grades.
It hit me even more how my envelope with grades were inside there and I still had another 30 minute wait until I could get my grades, still catching up with my friends after not seeing some of them for over a month put me in a positive mood. Eventually it hit 10 AM and we queued up, I made a joke about how the invigilators who were inside the exam hall really did follow us till the end, as three of the women looking over our shoulder and running about with extra paper during May and July were sat at the desk signing everyone in. It was my turn.
My hands shook so much I came up with a whole new signature instead. 
“Please go to the left and collect your results.” The lady told me.
“Can’t I just wait a bit?” I thought as my legs somehow moved without my brains consent, my lips shaped out my name and within 20 seconds I had the white envelope in my hands. I had a plan as I keep repeating. To go to an open field, why? To avoid the century old question “So, how’d you do?”
I was about to head out the fire exit when something made me stop, I was looking out the window at one of the year 13’s, they were overjoyed. That’s when it hit me. Who was I trying to impress? As I’m Nigerian, where 90% of the family work in medicine or as lawyers, I knew I would most likely have a handful of people from church and oversees call to see how I did.
A genuine conversation with a woman from church
Her: Which sciences do you do?
Me: None, I’m into humanities
Her: Does it lead into medicine?
Me: *mentally* if you want me jabbing you with a pen and paper in the operating theatre, then sure….
Her: What do you want to be?
Me: Anything in media
Her: Hmmmm
I’m sure all Africans have had their fair share of the doctor/lawyer talk and I’m used to it, nor am I bothered by it. This generation of adults were led by their parents into a profession they would have liked at the time, a profession that today still holds a lot of credibility, but today and 40+ years ago hardly anything is the same. Meaning our generation are into different things, worse and better at different things etc etc etc. I was into science but I wasn’t a top student, the same goes to maths except I hated it and was bad at it too. However humanities was just for me, I received an A in every humanities subject I took at GCSE so I knew doctor/lawyer or not I would do something good and buy myself my dream Jeep.
Goals
Back to my results day! For my A levels, as mentioned all my subjects were humanities, which meant a lot of writing, thinking, debating, critiquing, reading. Here were the subjects I took.
Media studies
Sociology
English Literature
Psychology
In my first “Documenting my Education” blog post I wrote about how I REGRETTED TAKING PSYCHOLOGY. There was maths, even though it was a little maths, a little is a lot of maths anyway. Also there was a lot of names to remember, studies etc, the same goes for sociology but there was just a difference between Psychology and Sociology that led me to always do a lot better in Sociology despite the minimal criteria differences. Maybe just because I always enjoyed Sociology, I took it in Year 10.
Back to me being outside the fire escape, my friends were back in the main sixth form and I was alone in this mini hallway. I took another glance at the Year 13 “Who was I trying to impress?” I already knew my immediate family would be proud regardless of what I got, my friends would be by my side and I had a good supply of Capri-Sun’s at home. I don’t know why the latter was important but I love Capri-Sun so I thought I’d add it into that list. Plus if I didn’t want anyone else knowing I could always cut the house phone….
If you do Edexcel English Lit, let’s come together to bless the exam board for this one thing…introducing us to Marlon Brando.
Due to the new linear curriculum, I had to redo these exams again next year along with brand new Year 13 work and exams, except for AQA Media, that is still old spec. This made me feel 10 times better, I knew that next year was always a second chance. I knew that AS grades made Uni’s think about whether or not to give you a place as it told them how well you might do at A level due to predicted grades your school sent them. But if my predicted grades were bad I could still give 110% and get higher than my predicted grades, go into a stage called adjustment if I don’t get offers from Universities and still get a place.
But for Year 13’s they had to worry about getting off to uni? In comparison, Year 12’s can resit, change subjects. Year 13’s have to hope to get it first time, because God knows the Uni process is hard AF. Still, my AS levels may not have carried as much as A levels it still meant a lot so I still wanted to do well. I folded back the envelope and pulled it out quickly.
I’m going to put my reaction into Dami’s 8 Reaction Stages.
STAGE 1:
Dami opens the envelope, sees UMS points and thinks she has the highest grades known to man. Then realises shes a nugget that’s reading the UMS points…
STAGE 2:
Dami recovers from the UMS points/grades fantasy and then prepares herself for locating her actual grades
STAGE 3:
Dami sees her actual grades
STAGE 4:
STAGE 5: Dami
STAGE 6:
STAGE 7:
STAGE 8:
Dami tells friends they are tears of joy and that she did well. Despite how emotional she looks…
AFTER THIS LONG GIF SESSION…..I was overjoyed with my grades, two days later and it’s still sinking in now but I am very happy with them. Celebration partayy shall commence in my Travel blog next week when I travel to AMERICA
My gradesss
Sociology A
Media A
Psychology B
English Literature C
I have no idea how I got a B in Psychology but this I wish to tell you to never talk yourself into believing you don’t have what it takes to succeed. I was always at the bottom of the classes people believed really mattered e.g. maths (not saying that they don’t matter, just saying there’s more to life than numbers) and this led me to believe I was always going to be academically behind, because I wasn’t good at the subjects people believed would lead into “good jobs”. What is a “good job”?
For anyone on here that believes they haven’t got what it takes to make it in the real world for any reason, lemme tell yoy this since being in education I’ve met rich doctors and minimum wage doctors, I’ve met writers that make hundreds of thousands of pounds and I’ve met minimum wage writers. Moral of the story is to believe in your abilities despite the social standards against all subjects. Because your job role is just a role, you abilities to be passionate at work determines the outcome. As long as you set a goal, work hard and believe in yourself….as cheesy as it sounds. You’ll push your way into places, get your foot in the door, make a difference and be what you aspire to be.
Since results day, last year for GCSE when I got my C in maths after not believing I’d even scrape a D, I tried my best to believe in myself…even though I have my moments in this blog when it seems like I’ve lost hope, the trick is to keep trying and you’ll see results, guaranteed.
So now it’s the end of the second longest blog I’ve written so far, I am now a Year 13 getting ready to write personal statements, go to university interviews, do more exams etc. I’m adulting lol.
Right now…it might change…but currently my focus is to get into The University of Surrey to study Media, Culture and Society and start my career in Media with maybe my own multi-media magazine the future :$