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I am 36 and the only time I have EVER been asked my high school score in Australia was in my application to University back in 2002 when I was accepted into a Bachelor of Arts. The final year of high school was a pretty crappy year of my life and I remember vomiting with anxiety before at least three exams.
I didn’t like the first year of university and so I dropped out. I tried to be a waitress, a podiatrist, a receptionist and didn’t return to complete my initial degree until much later by which stage I could have earned my stripes through an open university or tafe and transferred to a campus of my choice. I graduated from that degree but only ever applied myself to a quasi-apprenticeship in student media. I got a post-graduate scholarship in Professional Writing and Journalism but didn’t have the tenacity or health to finish.
Since then, I’ve been employed, unemployed and a few things in between. Never in a job interview has my high school score come up. Not once. And, for the record all of my best employers have only ever cared about my passions, eagerness to learn and the ways in which I have helped facilitate growth and development in myself or others.
My “career” highlights have included being widely published including by Huff Post and Elephant Journal, as well as serving as an editor at The Good Men Project. But truthfully, I can’t even spell. Speaking to lecture theatres full of university and hospital placement graduates, students and staff about mental health have also been note-able achievement along with being part of several mental health advisory committees.
Next year I will finally publish my book, despite having a nervous breakdown ten years ago which left me unable to speak sentences. A bloody end of year score is not the end of the road. In fact, believe me when I tell you, it’s barely the beginning. And subject selection for your foundation example is a tiny part of that. I didn’t even pass year ten maths.
Neither your high school score nor your salary are a measurement of what kind of life you will live. Job opportunities will come and go. However, what is most important is your wellbeing and overall sense of achievement, satisfaction, and happiness. Take pride in finishing what you started, be tenacious enough to get back up after a stumble and never be scared to follow your passions.
Don’t compare your journey to your classmates. Some of the students I recall asking the silliest questions in class now works for prestigious law firms. But just remember you can have the smarts to get into law school and still end up bankrupt, on the run or nicknamed Lawyer X by default of a scandal through all the Australian media. Hell, even if you do go bankrupt in this day and age, (both morally and fiscally) you can still end up President of the United States of America.
Other girls from my school have made their own way in business, philanthropy, and enterprise. And some of us are living a life of mediocrity with meaning through motherhood. I am currently unwaged however, my husband who hates reading, writing and refuses to do public speaking or role-playing for professional development is very successful in the business trade. A good ATAR might be a leg up into your first campus choice or course BUT it does not define your future.
An ATAR won’t complete your degree, stop you over-speaking in your dream job interview, or prevent you from landing in the hospital during your first semester of post-graduate if you decide to go down that road. And, there’s no such thing as a bad ATAR. There are only ever students who have studied, completed what they started and learned invaluable shit about the world and themselves along the way.
Sometimes, the school of life and its friends in the dorms of ‘hard knocks’ and ‘adversity’ are categorically some of the best teachers you’ll ever know. Listen to them over your career counselor who suggested all your dreams and dashed in favor of a menial existence. A high school score is not where stars are born… there’s a whole ‘real world ‘for that and it certainly doesn’t necessarily end in the land of academia.
Pursue your passions, be bold and brave in said pursuit and try not to be a dickhead or become preoccupied with a number that says nothing of your worth as a person. With all these years of perspective and hindsight that’s the best advice I can give.
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