Well hello, click bait! That title makes this seem more dramatic than it actually is, methinks.
So here's the story, I sat my Leaving Cert in June of this year and was lucky enough to do far better than I expected without getting TOO stressed (don't get me wrong, I was stressed, but nowhere near the level of some of my friends). My dream has always been to go to a drama school to do a BA in Acting, so I did 2 auditions last year (cause that's all I had time for) and since I didn't get either, I decided to do a one-year-long Acting for Stage & Screen course in CSN in Cork, a further education college, and apply for lots of drama schools as well as look into a Plan B.
I lasted less than 2 months. Now, I don't want to shit on the course cause I'm sure it suits plenty of people, but it did not suit me or my goals. In my humble opinion, the course should be named "Drama & Theatre Studies" as it is aimed far more at prepping people for those courses in UCC & CIT (plus other unis) than actually giving them full acting training. The theoretical/related content far outweighed the actual time we spent acting.
I am lucky enough to not be a person who is prone to poor mental health, as I said earlier, I managed to stay pretty sane during the good ol' LC. But, this course, the amount of work that was piled on plus the time it took away from my goals (plus other family & friend worries) stressed me TF OUT. I mean like full-on-breakdowns-crying-for-3-hours kind of stress. And I was getting virtually NOTHING from the course!
Eventually, my mum & I came to the conclusion that the course was not worth the amount of work I had to put into it. So I dropped out. And it was such a relief. Since then I have been constantly busy. Working on audition prep, and doing work on a portfolio for my Plan B (which still isn't completely polished), doing some Xmas temp work and looking for a more permanent job.
So things didn't go to plan. And that's ok. There's a lot of stigma associated with being a "college drop out" and I really hate telling people that I'm no longer doing the course, because it makes me feel like they're going to think I "failed" in some way. In reality, I made the best choice for myself and my future, and I was just lucky enough that it was only a Level 5 course, and I hadn't spent over €3000 on a year of uni. There's a lot of pressure to go straight into uni after school, and I think that is the main reason for stress during Leaving Cert as well as the reason a lot of people end up in courses they don't like and end up dropping out.
My advice, don't rush into things! I know it doesn't seem like it, but you have the time to spend a year out! You don't have to take a gap year (I know some people think that they won't want to go back if they take the year out!), there's plenty of PLCs out there to keep you busy and give you a better idea of what you might want to study at third level.
In the end, you're young! Make the mistakes, do the wrong course, take all the gap years; whatever you fucking feel like! You have the time now to experience life, succumbing to the capitalist system can happen later ;) (lol getting political here!).
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Lots of love,
