Opinion: The Leaving Cert Isn't the Only Measure of Your Ability

Wednesday, 13 August, 2014.

I sat outside my school in my mam’s car, struggling to breathe as she cooed comforting words about how I'd be okay no matter the contents of my envelope.

Looking back, I was probably having a panic attack. It seems ridiculous now, but I felt that the Leaving Cert hadn't gone my way. Despite applying to a course that required a fairly modest amount CAO points, I was beyond worried. Biology, which I had to work at to even sit the higher level paper, had gone disastrously. My art clay piece – and life drawing, for that matter – was an absolute shambles. But most devastatingly of all, neither English paper went well enough to reflect the passion for writing I'd invested in since I was old enough to hold a pencil.

Nevertheless, I couldn't sit in the car forever. I headed in to pick up my envelope and returned to the car park to open it. I did alright enough to have passed everything and to have gotten a safe amount of points over what I needed. I started crying in relief, then realised I got a C in English, and cried harder.

I knew I was lucky to have gotten my points and that I shouldn't fret over a single grade. But all I ever wanted to do from a very young age was write. The more my interest in reading grew, the more my ability in writing grew. This was something well recognised by family, peers and teachers throughout my childhood. I’d write short stories and pass them on for others to read. Heavily influenced by the magazines bought for me as a frequent visitor of Temple St Children’s Hospital (Bratz Magazine, you're forever in my heart), I made my own magazines out of badly-drawn, shoddily-pencilled pages and a stapler I got my mam to rob from work.

In English at secondary school, I struggled amongst a class of gifted writers and a critical teacher with whom I butted heads occasionally. Through my own insecurity, I often felt like my work – and by default, I – was the ‘dud’ of the class. But in my senior years, things fell back into place. I don't know whether it was a new-found love for poetry that expanded my understanding of what language could do, or a less bratty, more mature ability to embrace my teacher (and grader!)’s constructive criticisms. Whatever it was, my grades got better and critical feedback turned to praise. I was once again convinced that writing was what I was meant to do and decided to study English at third level alongside history, my second favourite subject.

Seeing that C made me feel inferior again, this time to classmates I was yet to meet at college. Aren't you supposed to ace the subject you plan on studying further? Who would take me seriously as a writer if they knew I got that?

I can barely take myself seriously as I type that, but when you haven't been to college, you don't know that nobody at college is aware of – or quite frankly, gives a shit about – what you got in your Leaving Cert. I started my course full of worry and self-doubt, unsure of what my future would bring.

Fast forward to results day of my undergraduate degree’s final year, where I was shocked to see a first class honour grade beside the English literary dissertation I poured my soul into (entitled the Romanticisation of the Dead Woman in the Works of Poe. Sounds riveting, I know). A year later, I'm at the end of my master's degree. In my pursuit of a writing career, I’ve so far been published in the Irish Times and of course Hot Press.

That C would have been a whole lot easier to swallow if at 18 I knew what 22-year-old me would be up to. This isn't to say the Leaving Cert doesn't matter. It does to many people, and for some it validates their hard work. But the Leaving Cert isn't the only measure of your ability. You've had many things test you before it and you'll have many things test you after it. Regardless of how you've done – whether you've gotten the points or the grades you wanted or not – you got it done. That alone is something to be proud of.

If you can't see that just yet, that's okay too. You have the rest of your life to prove yourself to yourself – and you will.