Today, the exam silly season got started again. It’s exactly twenty years since I did my Leaving – twenty-two since my Inter (what they used to call the Junior Cert). People in the media are offering a lot of advice on how to handle the ordeal, trying to reassure everyone who’s heading into those exams. But with the best will in the world, it’s hard for those who’ve left it far behind to remember the pressure those exams put us under. Some of the stuff you hear or you read just sounds so meaningless, or irrelevant, or just plain patronizing.
But us old folk did do these exams – and important though they were, they did not define our lives. They did not decide who or what we were to become. Life’s more complicated than that.
There were some subjects I was confident about, others that I absolutely dreaded doing. I actually enjoyed the art exam in my Inter, though there was a lot more theory in the Leaving, which made it feel more like an exam and less like a drawing session.
But there was a spirit there too. People who hardly knew each other in school, or sometimes were even enemies, had a mission in common. It made that awful pressure a bit easier to bear. And finally getting started on those bloody exams eased it even further.
For those doing the Leaving (and some doing the Junior Cert), that very last month you spend in school will show your classes at their most focussed, their most united. Like any test in life, the excitement and the atmosphere will get to you. You’ll look at your school and your teachers differently. Possibly for the first time, you’ll realize that you’re all on the same side. And the feeling when it’s over will be like nothing you’ve ever had before (unless this is the second time you’ve done the Leaving, in which case you’ll know what I’m talking about).
So all I’ll say is, try and find a bit of time to chill and veg after each exam. Let your systems reset. Look at the students around you. They’re all going through the same thing. Everyone in Ireland does at this point in their life. The years in school have left their mark on you; you’re educated, whether you feel it or not. Whether you like it or not.
Good luck. And good luck with what happens afterwards.
