Michael Barton
CAO Applicant
As I write this article, I’m forty-and-a-half hours away from receiving my Leaving Cert results. Forty-and-a-half hours, in other words, from finding out exactly what eight years of primary school and six years of secondary, over 10’000 hours of classes, two state exams, and even some study actually adds up to. No pressure. It’s bizarre just how important the Leaving Cert is in terms of how it defines the product of your school life, and it’s bizarre what that level of focus does to you. Even now, I’m struggling not to treat this as a Paper 1 Composition, tossing in cliché feel-good quotes and literary references in the desperate hopes of wringing some bonus marks from the pen of a hypothetical examiner.
‘So, how are you feeling about results?’
A friend of mine remarked last week that none of the people he’d heard actually asking people that question were Leaving Cert students. Instead they were parents, siblings, family friends – people, in other words, not currently waiting to get a sheet of paper from the Department of Education dictating their immediate future. My friend made a good point; anecdotally speaking, almost none of the CAO applicants I know were actually spending very much time at all discussing results as of last week. Having immersed ourselves in post-Leaving Cert escapism throughout late June and July, we had developed a fairly strong shield of collective denial.
Enjoyable as it has been to pretend that the Leaving Cert was no longer relevant and the spectre of results wasn’t looming on the horizon, however, rumbles of impatience have lately begun to pick up. Whether on Facebook, by text, or in good old-fashioned conversation, it’s becoming clear that August has brought with it a much stronger awareness of the impending results and that, rather than trying to avoid them, many of us would now embrace the opportunity to find out how we did immediately, in spite of all our nervousness.
With the return of Leaving Cert anxiety has come fresh reflection and speculation on what the future might hold, and what, if all goes well, college might be like. My expectation is that the defining feature of university life will be increased personal autonomy. Whether it’s choosing a course, or specific modules, or what society to join, college offers to students a chance to define their own experience of their third-level years which is completely absent during school. Whether you want to be a scarf-wearing debater, a Knight of the Campanile, a science nerd or a hack student journalist, in university (I suspect) the choice is entirely yours. This is a far cry from the homogenous, uniform and rigorously structured experience most of us have during secondary school, and it’s what strikes me as the best thing about the prospect of college.
I don’t think any of us expect college to be without its hurdles. We’re prepared for a certain amount of social and academic woe, perhaps particularly so during the early days. And, of course, anyone who has had a happy time in secondary school will be unable to turn their back on it without some degree of sentimentality. Speaking for myself, though, I’m tired of having to speculate about what college might be like, about whether I’ll enjoy lectures or about what societies I’ll join. More than that, I’m tired of idling in results purgatory, wondering whether the effort involved in sitting the Leaving Cert has paid off. In spite of any worries, trepidation or doubts I might feel, I do know one thing – I’m ready to find out.
