By Jacob de Figueiredo

I hated School

When I turned 18 and started my A Levels I hated school.

I truly did, most people would say it was a totally unjustified hatred and I shouldn’t have done stupidly hard A Levels (Physics, Economics and Graphics) with mediocre GCSE results and a strong addiction to video games, but let’s ignore most people. For me, school was suffocating. There was an underlying feeling throughout my school life that my favorite subjects, the ones that I found truly interesting and inspiring, were considered “doss” subjects by my peers and teachers and if I wasn’t en route to becoming a lawyer, accountant or a profession that involves seeing excel spreadsheets more than my friends and family, what else was I going to do?

I wanted to create my own path, think for myself and experience the real world (a job) that the teachers were always talking about…

“Do you want a good job Jacob?”

“Do you want to be stacking shelves? Because that’s what will happen if you don’t get the grades and find yourself a good job!”

(Ironically, I actually did find myself in a fulltime job at a supermarket stacking wine bottles due to the fact that I failed my A levels, but let’s move on. I also don’t think that it’s a bad job, there’s something very admirable and comforting about how content and happy my colleagues were with their jobs at that supermarket and I have nothing by respect for that.)

I didn’t want to jump through hoops for 6 more years. I wanted to see MY actions actually affect something, make a real difference, regardless of scale. Do something I knew I could be truly proud of.

So I followed my gut and I left sixth form, why push something that you know, deep down, isn’t meant to be. We are all different and thrive in different environments, which is something I think people forget.

I might be sounding mildly overdramatic, but there’s nothing worse than feeling lost, feeling as if you came out of the womb destined to fail because the only obvious routes to avoid failure are ones which you find uninspiring and pointless.

I really wish schools supported arts the same way they support most academic subjects, or at least recognise students who prefer a more vocational way of learning and provide them with alternative career paths beyond just going to university, that will allow their passions and interests to shine brightly.