Why I chose to quit College and not go to University...

Now I know that this time of the year some people will be getting prepared to sit their exams in a few weeks time and be getting their offers from University, I should have been one of those people last year. A lot of the boys and girls my age are now in their first year and I often get the question, why didn't you go Haley? This is something I have needed to get off my chest for a while and it starts with when I attended college.

My first year of college I didn't go to my high schools Sixth Form counterpart. I thought that all my unhappiness in high school was because of the environment and the people I was around. I had a large group of friends of school, only one person I now still speak too and I do consider her my best friend. At the college I decided to attend I chose an art and design course. I met various people on the course, a lot of whom I got along with and was rather happy. Now I have always suffered with anxiety and mild depression because of what has happened in the past but I managed to keep it all in check up until my first year of college. Towards the exams part of my art and design course there was a family tragedy and this completely messed me up in the best of terms. I decided to quit college because I couldn't cope.

It was months later before I managed to get myself back on track, after yet another family tragedy only 3 months after the one where I chose to quit college, and I applied to go to my old high school's Sixth Form college. This is where most of my friends were and it's also where my best friend was. I was extremely happy here and I even fell for a boy. Now I don't blame him entirely for my breakdown in college as it happened only 2 months after we broke up, I blame mostly the extreme pressure that you get put under at college when doing A levels. Now I don't know if it was my teachers who pushed me too hard or that I pushed myself because I thought that I had to prove myself  but I completely fell apart.

It was this point where I began to cry myself to sleep and cry every morning before I had to go to college. I would dread going in to college and I felt like I was being judged by every single one of the people that I knew apart from my best friend, who was at this point the only person who knew what was happening apart from my mum. I purposely missed classes and found any excuse not to go because I would just sit and cry in lessons. I pushed myself so hard in the mock exams to the point where I cried after the exam because I thought I did so bad. It turns out that I did rather well but I was then accused of cheating on one of the exams. I absolutely did not cheat and run myself ragged revising for an exam that didn't even count.

My form teacher was beginning to notice all this and she tried her best to support me but I couldn't cope. I ended up having to quit because i was missing too much. Back at home I was also caring for my mum who is severely disabled and cannot work. Her needs were beginning to be neglected when I was going to college because I had to work and I couldn't take her shopping or take her to pay her bills or just sit with her and talk. The option of University was not even on the cards if I did finish college because it wouldn't be practical for me to be hundreds of miles away with my mum not able to fend for herself, which she cannot do while all my brothers have families and lives of their own and can't check in on her every day.

Currently now I am my mums permanent Carer and am able to provide her with the care that she needs rather than her suffer, as she also has severe anxiety and depression as well as other illnesses which mean she is wheelchair bound when out of the house and can barely walk a few steps before it becomes extremely painful. I am beginning to get better, I have bad days but I think that everyone does. I have noticed that although I was a good student, college and university just was not for me. It won't be for everyone and some, although this may be a few, will be going through the same as me and all I want to say is that there is more to life than school and university. My situation is by no means ideal but I have to do it, because to put it simply, no one else will. There are options for those who don't want to go to university or college, lots of people go straight to work or get apprenticeships.

I hope that this helps someone. It helped me to get it out and write it down rather than keep it in.

Haley x