Tasha Dhanraj says goodbye to her schoolbooks

It is the eve of my final, final exam of the International Baccalaureate. After this, it is all finished. I will have done over 15 exam papers. I have done over 150 hours of Creativity, Action and Service. I have gone through 12 ring binder folders. This is truly the end of two of the most stressful years of my life.

It is difficult to say whether I wish I had done A-Levels at this point. On the one hand, studying biology at a level higher than GCSE was definitely a mistake. Once biology became more complex than ‘a fox eats a rabbit which ate some grass’, it was just a wilderness of words that I didn’t understand. Meanwhile, there have been some subjects that I would never have done otherwise and have thoroughly enjoyed – such as philosophy.

My biggest regret over the last two years is the feeling that I didn’t make enough effort with the people I was sharing my classes with. It hasn’t been the best time of my life, due to a series of unfortunate personal events and as a result I allowed myself miss out on really getting to know anyone to the level that I could call them a ‘bestie’. I spent several months of just not really going out unless I had to and spending a lot of time closed up in my room. Once I was out of that, I chose going to the pub with my significantly older friends, or going to family events, over hanging out with people my own age, who could have really made my time at college more enjoyable.

“I spent several months of just not really going out unless I had to”

Next year, almost all of them will be heading off to university, while I will be just starting to apply. I can’t escape the sense that even though I am finally moving on from sixth form, that I am also being left behind. People keep asking me what my offers are and I have to give the overly repeated answer that I never applied anywhere.

I don’t really have any friends my own age, so once they’re gone I’ll have no real connection to people who were brought up with Blue’s Clues and Lizzie McGuire. The next year will involve me doing internships and gaining experience in the world of business and offices and even more people older than me. I wonder if at the end of next year I will be lamenting my time at college and wondering whether I made the right choice after all.