You see it every single year: smug middle aged people on Twitter posting, ‘To anyone who didn’t get their first choice course, I just want to let you know that I didn’t get my first choice and I still wound up massively successful’. The eternal humble-brag of the smug millennial.

Another sub-genre you often see online is, ‘I was clever and gifted, and now I am in college in my first choice course and lonely and miserable’.  These well meaning but often infuriating sentiments seem like a cold comfort when you’ve put months of work and stress into what you think will be the beginning of the rest of your life.

The most infuriating part of it all is that these sentiments are right. It kind of doesn’t matter how you did in your Leaving Cert, and if you didn’t get your first choice. There are more ways than ever to get where you want to be. As the saying goes, ‘What’s meant for you won’t pass you by’. As long as you make the effort, that is!

First and foremost…

Reframe the tragedy. How bad is it? Do you need to repeat? Most of the time, the answer is probably no. There are only two courses – the notoriously difficult medicine and engineering – where, if you miss the points, repeating is the only option.

Even then, there are graduate programmes to get into these courses. It’s a bit more complicated, in that when you get in at a graduate level, you need to do four years of study, rather than a Masters to transfer your qualification.

If you want to repeat? That’s grand, it’s a few months of your life. Not the end of the world, and no, you’re not going to be weird and old when you get to college. And no, it doesn’t mean you’re stupid. And no, again, no one who matters will judge you for it. The number of people who repeat to get into a higher points course is significant. But it is dwarfed by the number of people who get their first choice and realise it’s not for them.

I’m not gonna repeat. What should I do?

If you’re not going to repeat, you have three main options…

A) Find the most similar course to your first choice that’s within in your points range.

This is the first port of call for most people. As you’re leaving school, you don’t really know exactly what you want to be for the rest of your life anyway (maybe I am speaking as a commitment-phobe), and that’s a good thing. However, you probably have some genuine inclination towards certain things. Do I like working with people or alone? Do I have a favourite subject in school? Do I want to make a lot of money?

If you have an interest follow it. You might not have gotten into a specific course you wanted, but there’s almost certainly something very similar out there for you.

B) Find a level 6/7 course which can get you into your dream course.

If you know what you want, but you just missed out, level 6/7 courses are a great way to get a level 8 (a higher diploma) qualification. A level 6 course is known as a higher certificate and is usually 2 years in duration as opposed to most 4 year undergrads. These courses are a great way to test the waters and see if you actually like what you’re planning to study, without the same financial and time commitment.

Equally, a level 6 could set you off on a path you never considered. Most courses have options with lower points called ‘Level 7s’ - a level 7 is known as an ‘ordinary degree’ as opposed to a ‘higher degree’ (level 8). However most level 7s are three years long and include an add-on year which transfers into a higher diploma.

For almost every degree out there, there is another path, and just because the path is a bit longer, doesn’t mean it’s less worthwhile.

C) Do whatever course you get and see if there’s a masters to ultimately get into your first preference course.

If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. Except, it’s a degree and you’re not marrying the damn thing. I am a big believer in the idea that education is always time well spent. If you are in the category of knowing exactly what you want to do, and you didn’t get it, there’s no harm in researching what postgrad options you have. Certain courses act as great feeders into particular postgrads.

We are the generation that will almost all have to get Masters - so why stress so much about the undergrad?

Finally, I did grand points wise, and now I don’t know what to do…

This is extremely common. I cannot begin to stress how normal it is to have no idea what you want to do once you’re finished secondary school. Every major decision in your life up until this point has been made for you, and now all of a sudden, you’re overwhelmed with having to choose everything for yourself, all at once.

There are two options here – pick something on a whim, or work – even if you decide it only for a year.

Picking something and doing it: it might sound like terrible advice, but that ignores the inherently random nature of things, and how we are all influenced by events, decisions, whims and people. Sometimes you just don’t know if you like something until you try it. Give it 12 weeks, and if you don’t like it, either drop or switch (this is the last moment you can drop out without incurring more fees).

The second option is work for a year. Education is one of the only times in your life where you are surrounded by people the same age as you and with broadly similar life experience to you. Once you enter the work force, you reach the mind-altering realisation that you can empathise and relate to people over 30.

You learn a lot from working. Plus, you can save money; you can travel; and worst case scenario, you’ve spent a year realising you’d rather be inside a classroom (makes you appreciate education all the more).

Whatever happens, you’ve done your Leaving Cert and you should be proud. You’ve finished 14 years of education and that’s an accomplishment in itself. What you do next is a bonus.

Read the full Student Special in the current issue of Hot Press – out now: