A Levels Results, Twitter and £9000 Uni Fees

As Twitter will probably have reminded you all, lots of teenagers got their A Level results this week. That means it is six years since I got my results and times have changed with social media, as Sabotage Times highlight in 'How Facebook & Twitter Ruined Celebrating A-Level Results'.

When I got mine back in 2006 Twitter had just launched and Facebook wasn't yet big in the UK, that would come part way through my first year at university. We were on the cusp of a social media revolution and so, the morning I got my results I was not on my iPhone tweeting (my little Samsung didn't even go on the internet). I was sat on my boyfriend's bed trying to convince him to check on the UCAS website so he didn't need to freak out worrying he hadn't got on to the Dentistry course he was hoping for whilst we were at school. (He didn't listen.)

I wasn't putting pictures of my results and congratulatory letters on Instagram after panicked status' that I wouldn't get on to my course. As a "Dignified Straight A student" I was rather quiet about how well I had done. As I wanted to do a creative course (Fashion and Brand Promotion with Journalism) I only needed a C in Art and Textiles so I wasn't concerned. My good results were just the icing on the cake, not necessary at all. 

Only those doing Dentistry or Medicine really needed to worry about their results, unless you had your sights set on Oxford or Cambridge but as a normal school in a sleepy village in Staffordshire we knew we weren't really posh enough for that. Now, with fees of £9000 a year and AAB becoming a prerequisite for hundreds of courses the new nature of A Level results day seems to have changed beyond sharing on social media.

My boyfriend did get in (though he was lacking one of the required As)  but now universities offering Dentistry as a course are having to rethink how many students they take with more and more left jobless when they leave due to cuts in the NHS. I wonder if those that got their results this week were jumping for joy and heading out for a few drinks or nervously packing their suitcases and buying pans from Wilko's.

This is what my A Level celebrations looked like... (yes my little sister, now 13, felt the need to join in when we were getting ready)

Which led to this at uni...

A graduation ceremony...

And another graduation still when I went back to get my Masters...

However nervous you are I can assure you that university will be one of the most amazing times you'll ever have. Be sure to choose your friends carefully because if you pick right they'll be your friends for a very long time and make the most of your summers - travel and do lots of work experience. It all worked out for me and now I'm Social Media Manager at a marketing agency. Yes, I tweet for a living.

It might be a lot of money but having a good degree and a clever, hardworking head on your shoulders really does pay off. Plus, uni is a lot of fun! You'll come out a different (and hopefully even more amazing) person for the experience.