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does high school really matter?

younginhuman

younginhuman

New Member
I'm 16 and am currently in high school. before now, i had pretty high ambitions despite my grades on what i wanted to do with my future. I wanted, and still do want to be a psychiatrist or psychologist, or at least something in the medical field. However, throughout the year my grades have only been going down and its practically impossible for me to raise them no matter how hard i try. I've never had good grades, but i'm not stupid, and I hate how some bullshit test gets to decide whether or not others think i am. I'm just not built for school.
Recently i've started to realize that my grades have a much larger impact on my future than i previously thought. Realizing that i may not get my dream job doesn't bother me too much, as i'm also okay with settling and working in a library or starting my own business, but then i started to think, is that even possible if i don't make it into college? If i don't graduate? Will i seriously be stuck in some office job for the rest of my life or working in a seven eleven? I'm a smart person and i seriously don't want that to go to waste and just get stuck rotting for the rest of my life with nothing.

TL;DR: does how well i do in high school dictate the rest of my life? those of you who had bad grades please let me know how your life is going and if there's hope even if others say there isn't
 
In the short term yeah it will impact your choices but in the long run no it probably won't make that much of an impact.

I mean it may reveal more about who you are which changes you ideas about what you want to do but that's life in general not just school.

There are a million different routes into further or higher education.

Nothing us set in stone and to be honest by the time your 26 very few people with give the least bit of a shit about how you were at 16.
 
I hated school, and didn't apply myself.

However 10 years later and some experience under my belt I managed to get into University to do an HND, that if i chose now could turn into a masters, with no qualifications.

If you can find something you love and apply yourself and can show it, you can do it.

Not sure if that's good advice or not.
 
Although I had good grades when I was in school, those results had no bearing in my degree, as I did it in a foreign country (i.e. here), was older (23) and had to do an access course first - for which the only thing that counted was an aptitude test.

However, I will say this, learning how to learn is a life skill (i.e. study skills) - so if you try and find effective ways of absorbing information and learning new things this particular skill will stay and help you throughout life. Also if you can learn how to do research that's very useful too, especially if you have ambitions to go into the medical field.

Do schools teach study skills at all? I hope so... They definitely taught us that in the Access course - extremely useful.

BBC Learning English - Go The Distance: Study Skills

Our fun animated videos will help develop your study skills, whether or not you're a distance learner. Topics include: quoting, paraphrasing and summarising; critical thinking skills; listening and note-taking and more.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
My academic path - NVQ>BA>PGCert>PGDip>MA>PhD - started in my mid20s and has had next to no link with my high school credentials.

...but, it's harder carving out the time/space/opportunity to do so once you've stepped off the usual path.

Also worth noting that all these qualifications have not left me with some high-flying career. I'd earn more if I'd trained as a plumber or something. I did them cos I enjoyed it.
 
younginhuman said:
I'm 16 and am currently in high school. before now, i had pretty high ambitions despite my grades on what i wanted to do with my future. I wanted, and still do want to be a psychiatrist or psychologist, or at least something in the medical field. However, throughout the year my grades have only been going down and its practically impossible for me to raise them no matter how hard i try. I've never had good grades, but i'm not stupid, and I hate how some bullshit test gets to decide whether or not others think i am. I'm just not built for school.
Recently i've started to realize that my grades have a much larger impact on my future than i previously thought. Realizing that i may not get my dream job doesn't bother me too much, as i'm also okay with settling and working in a library or starting my own business, but then i started to think, is that even possible if i don't make it into college? If i don't graduate? Will i seriously be stuck in some office job for the rest of my life or working in a seven eleven? I'm a smart person and i seriously don't want that to go to waste and just get stuck rotting for the rest of my life with nothing.

TL;DR: does how well i do in high school dictate the rest of my life? those of you who had bad grades please let me know how your life is going and if there's hope even if others say there isn't
Click to expand...

Have you spoken to your teachers about this and asked for their help?

One of the things I've noticed about having kids (mine are 16 & 18) is that they don't appreciate how much help is available and consequently don't ask. I'm sure I was the same.
 
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No qualifications, no college, no A's, no nothing over here. Left school at a young age. Difference with me was - I didn't even try to be good at it.

I'm not un-happy with my life. Busy, settled, fulfilling jobs, happening business etc.
Also loved my late teens / early twenties. When others went to high school, college, or uni, or had to be up early for their apprenticeship, I went travelling, touring with bands, met like-minded people, got wasted, went raving and squatting, and fine-tuned my interest in music making. Taught me a lot about life.

Do I think this is suitable for others? Not necessarily.
Do I have regrets? No.
Do I judge others by their education and ability to live conventional lives? No.
Do I think you can still have a career and be (sort of) financially secure? Yes.
 
There will probably be many more exams in your future if you want to go into your chosen medical field. Perhaps start with looking at how you prepare/study for exams.

Personally, I was always great at exams, while coursework and projects were a real struggle.

Some of the things I did at uni...

1. As many past papers as I could find.
2. Condense all the important lesson notes onto study cards.
3. Change my environment... I mostly studied at the library.
4. Take a 10 minute break every hour.
5. Work out how many exams I had, how many study days, and create a study timetable with similar time allocated to every subject.
6. Put the hours in. I would be at the library when it opened and stay all day. Then do a couple of hours at home before stopping at a reasonable time like 8 or 9pm to chill and unwind with a film and a spliff. Even at school I was at home studying when I had exams, while my friends were out playing football. I passed they didn't.

Anyway that was my experience, your mileage may vary etc...
 
We’ve got a 16 year old on here?! :eek: Welcome younginhuman :)

I am a psychologist btw, a good bachelors degree is vital for that field (you won’t get considered for the funded training without a good 2:1, a 1st is helpful as is a masters), but studying at uni can be a hugely different experience to studying at school. It’s much more independently driven for a start, and about understanding things in greater dept and breadth. If you need to be really interested in a subject than uni is, in some ways, easier. GCSEs have to be good enough to get you into VIth form, but then apart from maths and English, IME they’re then largely ignored.


I also work with a lot of teenagers who, for numerous reasons, don’t do well at school or even stop being able to attend. A fair amount of those have since absolutely thrived moving to a further education college or on apprenticeships.
 
Plenty of people do very well after not doing well at school. 'It doesn't matter' would be a bit of a stretch though I think, while I'm sure there are plenty of examples of other paths, if you looked at the history of most people in professions like Psychiatry or Psychology you'd see 'do well at school, do well at Uni, etc etc' I reckon.
 
It felt important at the time (which was a long time ago - in the ancient 80s) and I got those ancient qualifications
O levels and A levels - went to Uni - did some post grad stuff - but ultimately I could probably have had a decent career without all that :D
 
Agent Sparrow said:
We’ve got a 16 year old on here?! :eek: Welcome younginhuman :)

I am a psychologist btw, a good bachelors degree is vital for that field (you won’t get considered for the funded training without a good 2:1, a 1st is helpful as is a masters), but studying at uni can be a hugely different experience to studying at school. It’s much more independently driven for a start, and about understanding things in greater dept and breadth. If you need to be really interested in a subject than uni is, in some ways, easier. GCSEs have to be good enough to get you into VIth form, but then apart from maths and English, IME they’re then largely ignored.


I also work with a lot of teenagers who, for numerous reasons, don’t do well at school or even stop being able to attend. A fair amount of those have since absolutely thrived moving to a further education college or on apprenticeships.
Click to expand...

I get the sense that the OP is in the US. Career pathways for psychologists may vary.
 
Winot said:
Yes, although annoyingly the term 'high school' seems to be increasingly used in the UK for secondary school.
Click to expand...

And we have seven elevens here, and grades. But all three?

E2A:

College, too. Only used in the context of post-16 exams, vocational training or ancient universities over here.
 
Aren’t a huge part of American university/college offers down to one single exam? :eek: That’s always struck me as ridiculous. Admittedly I’m just going by TV and films so I might be completely wrong on that :D
 
weepiper said:
We've always called it high school in Scotland. And janitor instead of caretaker too.
Click to expand...

i can't remember if there was an official term when i was little. i was aware of the term 'janitor' but that might have been through reading the 'beano' which (being a DC Thompson publication) did use some 'scottish english' words and phrases

skyscraper101 said:
You also have 'Sheriffs' and 'Sheriff Courts' which always sounds quite wild west to me down here in that London.
Click to expand...

many 'americanisms' are really either obsolete and / or regional things from somewhere in britain at some time in the past
 
Puddy_Tat said:
many 'americanisms' are really either obsolete and / or regional things from somewhere in britain at some time in the past
Click to expand...

Of course. 'Soccer' being an oft derided example - which, if you go back only a few years was a very common word for the game among UK football circles.
 
Agent Sparrow said:
Aren’t a huge part of American university/college offers down to one single exam? :eek: That’s always struck me as ridiculous. Admittedly I’m just going by TV and films so I might be completely wrong on that :D
Click to expand...
I don't know if it's the same today, but when I studied at an American university, we did have exams via multiple choice questions, which I found strange at the time.
 
Hello younginhuman and welcome !

Bottom line is, although there are many routes into higher education at pretty much any age, the education available to you presently is free. Are you sure you've found a way of studying which works best for you ? How many hours a week are you putting in ? Have you tried getting up early to study, rather than work into the night ? For some, the early hours (04:00, say) are brilliant for studying because all the other noisy fuckers are asleep :D

Whatever you do with your life there will be times when lots of effort is required from you, which is a total ballache but an unfortunate truth. It's worth asking people around you that do well how they manage it, are there any fellow students doing well that you could talk to about studying and improving your grades ? Whatever you do, good luck :thumbs:
 
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