Hey Guy, What do you wish you'd known at school?

Guy tells us about the mistakes he's grateful for, and some he's not so....

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What do I wish I’d known at school?
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This a hard question to answer in an article. The first things I’d probably tell my younger self would be that, no matter how hard you try, you will never look good with long hair, and don’t, for the love of all that you hold dear, put it in a ponytail. I’d then move on to fashion choices – black hoodies with wolves on will never suit me, and whilst I did love my Iron Maiden t-shirt, it had holes under the arms and consigning it to the bin would have been a mercy.
The wolf hoodies were a fashion choice influenced by my love of animals, and throughout my time at school I knew very clearly what I was going to do when I was older; I was going to be a zoologist, someone who worked with animals.

I loved animals. I spent hours poring through encyclopaedias of animals and for five years I volunteered at a local falconry centre (all the photos I have of me handling falcons and eagles are destined to never be seen, due to the aforementioned ponytail). Whenever I was on holiday I’d keep lists of all the animals I’d seen. I once got told off in biology for reading one of Temple Grandin’s books on animal psychology – half the trouble I got into at school came from getting bored in class and reading my own book, which has to be the nerdiest way of being naughty.
This was my plan. It was a good plan, and it was going well.

Until I failed my biology A-level. Biology is the main thing you need to be good at to be a zoologist, so this was a bit of a problem.

I re-sat it.

And failed again.

I ended up going to university to study Ancient History, because I did love history, and Cardiff University Ancient History had lower entry requirements than the standard History degree. Entry requirements that I still missed by a country mile; I spent my first weeks of university in shock and fear that there’d been some sort of administrative error, waiting to be informed that they were very sorry but could I please go away.

History suited me. I found the subject fascinating and was good enough at it that I didn’t have to push myself too hard to get decent grades. It was only writing my third year dissertation that opened up my eyes to the possibilities of academia, and weeks later I’d applied for my MA in Ancient and Medieval Warfare. I regularly achieved Merits – the highest grade possible, and went to do a PhD.

My PhD studies are a saga for a different time, but it seems to be heading in a better direction than I could ever have dreamt of. I never thought that I had the potential to be a Dr, let alone one in History and Creative Writing – some of my favourite things in the world.

So, what relevance does this to have to what I wish I’d known at school?

It is easy for me to go “oh, I wish I knew that biology wasn’t going to work out, I could have saved myself so much time and effort,” or to fantasise about going back to my weeks of study before my GCSEs and A-Levels and slap myself over all the hours I wasted on inept revision. I spent days highlighting every single revision guide I had, before mindlessly copying everything out into piles of flashcards that I then never utilised. I poured hours into my revision, and it was all essentially pointless – I can still remember the music I was listening to when I revised, but I have no idea of the things I “learnt.”

It is tempting to think about this, but I don’t think knowing what I know now, with the benefit of hindsight, would have been beneficial to me.

If I had dropped biology and my dreams of zoology, would I have always gone through life with a nagging sense of what if? This way I tried my best and my best wasn’t good enough. There’s no shame in failing if you can walk away and say honestly I tried my hardest.
What about if I had learnt effective revision techniques back then? Would I have ended up going to university to study biology, a subject I fundamentally struggle with? Would I have embarked upon the same journey to discover the true love of learning and knowledge that I went through at my time at university?

Your mistakes are important, and they are yours, in the best sense of the word. Mistakes suck, and they can hurt. Sometimes you make mistakes and the world seems to be a dark and hopeless place because of them. But that’s half the point. Making mistakes, and the consequences of them, make us stronger. There is nothing more conducive to growth than a good bit of failure.
We make mistakes when we try new things, explore new areas, push boundaries, and that is the beauty of them. It is only by making mistakes that we learn what we are doing wrong, what doesn’t suit us, and what we are not good at.
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So, whilst the photos of my ponytailed teenage self makes me cringe and the thought of all the time and effort I spent on my biology is annoying, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t want to do things any differently.

Again, then what do I wish I’d known at school?

Well, everything that I know now, but also, nothing. The person I was, the things that I knew (and didn't), the stuff I did, and the choices I made at school, were all crucial steps along the path of my life. Had I done them differently, then maybe I would be a different person in a different place, and I’m not sure that would be a good thing.
So try your hardest, push yourself, explore new things, and make sure you do everything in your power to remain optimistic. We create our own luck, as much as it happens to us, and remember that life has a way of surprising us. 

What happened this month in 1994:
- Hospital drama ER launches - shooting George Clooney to fame.
- And some programme called 'Friends'... That one didn't go anywhere did it?? 😂
- Lidl opens its first stores in the UK - who knew it had been here that long?!
- Boyz II Men are no. 1 with 'I'll Make Love to You'.  

Author

Guy joined Push in 2021 as a Editorial and Media Assistant. Shortly after joining he started taking part in delivering webinars, before becoming a regular member of the presenting team. Guy has delivered hundreds of sessions across the U.K and worked with tens of thousands of students. He is currently studying his PhD in History and Creative Writing.
(And we’re also glad he’s ditch the ponytail – although that’s not to say we’re not accepting of, or partial to, a trendy man bun. But they are two very separate things).

Picture by: Kind and Curious on Unsplash