What Happened after A Levels

Written by: Chang Shi En (Class of 2019)

My A levels ended with Physics paper 1 at 15:30 on the 29th of November. My mind was clear, and the paper went smoothly, more so than I expected. As people left the hall, I could hear cheers and groans throughout the corridors. My classmates and I looked at each other with tired smiles. Today also marked the end of our Geography papers which in itself had been our Everest.

But now what? A levels was a slow and excruciating death but just like that, it ended. A chapter of our lives as uniformed students had closed and though we all knew this day would come, none of us could begin to imagine what that would really feel like.

I thought it might be of help to give some form of personal account of my experience after A levels. Perhaps it can help some people form a more realistic image of 'post A level' days, or it can give someone something to look forward to.

1. Confronting the initial sense of confusion, calm and catharsis

I enjoyed being a student. In retrospect, a lot of things were planned out for me. A daily timetable, who I interacted with, how I would spend my money. These are things that you lose once you graduate. Times really are simpler as a student. The big question that loomed in front of me was "What should I do now?"

A general feeling of being lost, I daresay, resided in a lot of us.

In school, the finish line is obvious. There is a finite end for many people. CCA stand down is on ____ day, A levels papers end on ____ day, on ____ day your gclassroom account will cease to function. But once I graduated, I realised that the 'end point' is arbitrary. Is it when I secure my university place? When I get a job? When I get married and have kids? The end point is no longer shared among a collective, everyone has the autonomy to decide their own set of directives. The world suddenly became so expansive that it was stress inducing.

My way of reconciling that was to look in the present and take things one step at a time. What are some small projects that I have put off for so long? What kinds of skills do I want to try and pick up? Who do I want to hang out with in the next week?

I still had an awareness of some overarching things I needed to get done but I chose to appreciate the present a bit more than I used to.

In that change, I enjoyed being more spontaneous. A simple way was to say yes to more things.

2. Settling down into a constant state of 'nua'

A universal idea among my social circle is that we cannot phantom how productive we used to be in comparison to our current lifestyles. In the past there was always something to do. A reading to look over again, notes to edit, revision to revise. Now we basically had most of our days free. On days with no work, we could stay up till 3 and wake up at 12. We could roll out of bed and roll back into bed. The daily tasks were now up to us to define.

I would say this kicks in about 3 months after A levels ends. When the adrenaline from JC wears off and we slowly ebb into our own form of listless existence.

Some people would joke that for girls, the next time we ever get a break that is this long and this free is when we go on maternity leave.

I'm not saying that becoming a potato is good or bad. I think it is simply fine. After a month of not knowing what to do with myself I had the self-discipline to set tasks and to regain some form of structure and control over my time. Even so, I was still in this 'nua' phase.

Never did I hit the same sense of satisfaction of completing a lot in a day as I did when I was juggling CCA, school and H3. But after adjusting my expectations, if I managed to finish a small amigurumi, cook something, complete some classes on Skillshare or catch up with a friend I would be content.

3. Getting a job

I found this part quite exciting. Right after graduation I knew I wanted to have some job early on and maybe stop a few months before university started. That is exactly what happened. (Which is why I say that if you have a clear set of goals you will probably only achieve those goals, maybe less, but nothing more. I didn't go looking for more jobs after those, so I simply didn't work more)

I knew friends who worked in climbing gyms, the basement-level-of-mall-food-stand jobs, customer service, FnB, language centres, relief teaching. The range of potential jobs is vast so I would suggest looking for something that is in a field you are interested in or something that gives you skills and experiences that you are interested in. Some internships open applications quite early so go look around in your free time before the year is over.

Of course, not everyone got a job. Again, it boils down to what goals you set for yourself. This made me realise how things are different than in JC: opportunity does not fall from the sky. Outside of school, you would need to take initiative and carve out these opportunities for personal development.

That's about it though. Ideally, if you are going to look for a job, you can find one that feels more like fun than work. But most definitely, I grew from the experience.

4. Exploring creative outlets

What better way to spend time than to make things that spark joy?

'Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life' (taken from Google hahahaha but I found it fitting).

Some of my friends started art accounts for things like bullet journals, traditional art and digital art. Some started blogs and YouTube channels. I started an Instagram account to document my crochet creations mainly to reduce the spam I was giving people on my main Instagram page. I would consider this as one of the more unique things I embarked on, simply because I never considered myself very artistic or creative. Stepping into the world of Singapore-based artists, the amigurumi community and interacting more with people who I used to see table at conventions was eye-opening.

I began to sell the things I made, and I experienced how fun it was to use my skills to make a product that would spark joy for others.

Apart from amigurumi I made more anime props, started doing eraser stamp carvings and attempted to scrapbook to preserve my memories from school.

It is not for everyone, but finding creative outlets and investing time, money and energy into those hobbies did me a lot of good. It may not be something that is terribly useful for my future career, but it will be something that I can continue to find comfort in for the years to come.

5. Dwindling friend groups

This was a hard pill for me to swallow.

I am not one to take a lot of photos when I meet up with friends so recently in my scrapbook I attempted to make a list of who I met up with and what we did since phase 2 started. There were a lot of recurring names and I realised that these are probably the people who I will continue to be close friends with. Those who I didn't meet up with either were the 'low maintenance still can vibe with' friends or 'probably will end up becoming acquaintances' friends. The physical distance from not being in the same school does the sorting for you.

With the 'less than 5' rule in place and just in general 'try not to go out a lot' best practice I discovered 2 things about myself:

1. I am really bad with jio-ing people

2. I quite enjoy calling people over the phone and talking for hours on end

There will be people who still can maintain an exuberant social life and I know that I am just not on that level. In one of those long phone calls I had with a friend recently I came to the realisation that having shared experiences and worldviews are not necessary for me to form a strong friendship with someone. Having a similar sense of humour is. That already made it difficult for me to click with people because those who did share my brand of humour were few and far between. It did help me understand point 1 though, which was partly me worrying that when we do meet up there would be nothing to talk about.

6. Final thoughts

School is meant to prepare you for the future by presenting opportunities to practice skills and providing a safe space to grow. And to a certain extent it did.

School showed me how to use a timetable or a to do list to organise my time.

School showed me how to set tangible goals, or SMART goals if you really like acronyms.

School gave me the opportunity to form social networks that would become my pillars of support.

School was where I learnt to have discipline, be punctual, and the importance of good work ethic.

So, while I did feel a bit lost, I should have had the peace of mind that I was not going into this long state of limbo totally blind.

Post A levels, the thing which is in abundance is time. That is the only thing that everyone has in common when they graduate. How we use that time is where our paths diverge. And now that our long breaks have come to an end for many people in my batch, some of us would feel that it was well spent while some would wish that we could have done more.

All I can say is that those 9 months were whatever we chose to make of it.

Disclaimer:

The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in this post are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Project Oracle or the college.