i know what i want to do - always have - i want to work as a mental health nurse.
We have a guy at work who is very violent towards some people and i actually enjoy holding his arms down so the nurse can do what she needs lol
x

ive got 13 gcses. went on to 6th form but left cos tey wudnt let me study the courses i wanted to cos the classes were full. i then went onto work at Northern Rock, worked my way up to where I am now and Im now a computer analyst, building and fixing computer systems. all of this was through work experience and working bloody hard and all the hours god sends. im not on a brilliant salary 18k pro rata but not bad for someone without a degree.now all my frien ds who went on to uni are gutted as theyve got their degrees but theyre all now in a good £10k+ of debt, with little or no money and no jobs as there isnt any out there.


ive also got leve 1,2 & 3 in Counselling and hope to at one point compete my foundation degree for that x

Amy how fecking smart are you having 13 GCSE's!!! Why did you do so many? Did you do them all at the same time?! I thought 8/9 was average and 10/11 was a lot... but 13 blimey!

Snoopy I understand where you are coming from with the frustration over having qualifications and no job while others have no qualifications and good jobs.

IMO qualifications only get you so far and a lot of times they won't even get you an interview. My last 4 jobs heard about through contacts who have then gone on to help me get the job by giving me inside information so I can prepare better for the interview. Getting yourself a good, preferably high profile, mentor can pay massive dividends too.

Well, i have 2 c, 6ds and 2es at gcse, a business intermediate gnvq (equiv to 4 bs at gcse), a learning support certificate and a foundation degree in teaching and learning support and am learning how to be a further education teacher.

But hating work at the mo so will see how far i get...

MAndy xx

snoopy21 wrote:

Amy how fecking smart are you having 13 GCSE's!!! Why did you do so many? Did you do them all at the same time?! I thought 8/9 was average and 10/11 was a lot... but 13 blimey!

in my school...which i though was unfair...the brainy kids got the opportunity to take extra GCSE's

when my sister got to yr 11, they got the chance to take extra in IT if they did summerholiday lessons...but only selected ones i think?? and it was a gurenteed b if they completed the course??

Gill im hoping thats where keeping up the volunteering will pay off. The manager was able to advocate for me to get on TCI training (only open to employees). I think the fact I passed it was the only reason I got shortlisted for interview as so many applied. Again I passed interview and am on waiting list for a job (not holding breath), but one of the interviewers recognised me from facilitating the training so that maybe helped slightly - though I know most interviews are quite strictly points rated these days.
It didnt get me a job but I can see how networking is a great skill to have, though possibly unfair I suppose.

Gemz i wouldnt have wanted to do 13 GCSE's tbh. Id have been glad not to be picked over the summer . I sort of saw them as a stepping stone to Alevels and then Alevels as a stepping stone to uni. I think very few jobs care whether you have 6 or 14 GCSE's, particularly if they require further/higher qualifications.

- just saw it was a guaranteed B if passed. Suppose that a bit unfair as IT a pretty good GCSE to have, I dont think it was offered in my year.

Im pretty stupid i did GCSES got merit I.T and a C in food tech
but the others were ds and Es and a double FF in science haha FAIL x
I then did a btec induction diploma in health and socal care but i had a part time job which i lved and got offered fulltime and went with that because they told me i hadent passed my course to get onto level 2 but months later i got my certificate to say i passed wasent happy x

Niccsy wrote:

i know what i want to do - always have - i want to work as a mental health nurse.
We have a guy at work who is very violent towards some people and i actually enjoy holding his arms down so the nurse can do what she needs lol
x

lol, my mum is a mental health and learning disibility nurse...they have to do some right restraints, they have lessons in how to do them...shes always showing me how to get people onto the floor has to use the teqniques a lot too, quite scary really x

aye its deffinately a hard job! My ex was a psych nurse at a psych hosp and i used to go in with him for part of the nightshift (naughty) obviously nowhere near the patients just the office area and when it kicked off they all used to come back looking absoloutly knackered! He got some injuries a couple of times too!
One of my good friends that i met through him still works there and he loves it even though its not easy, i dont know why i want to do it cos i have hardly any strength at all but i just find mental health so interesting!
x

I got 8 GCSE's A* to C, NVQ Levels 3 in Business Admin and Customer Services (boring!), and then I got a diploma in Interior Design.

I've got two 1's and five 2's at Standard Grade
two Intermediate 2's at grades A & C
and two Highers at B & C

I went to college but failed everything but a few computer related modules and some Astronomy units. I'd just moved out of home and in with my boyfriend so I just skived off all the time
I then went to summer school to get in to Uni and started BSc Environmental Science but left after about a month cos I was lazy.
Went back to college the following year to do HNC Graphic Design and left there..... (see a theme )
Then moved 120miles away and started another college course only to run out of money and had to drop out...

I worked all the way through it though, I'm not lazy in work cos I know I have to go, I just hate doing the work that college/uni demands. I'm much happier working than being in education even though I know I'll never earn decent money now. Looking back I wish I'd left school at 16 and became a mechanic or an electrician, but that was what the bad kids did...... the good ones had to stay on and go to uni

Mmmmm i am beginning to think i am the most uneducated person on here!!
I have life skills lmao!!!

thats all that counts IMO

i dunno how to word it without it coming out wrong thou. personally, u can have all the education under the sun, as high a paid job as possible... but if ur not happy whats the point? there is a lot more to life than having qualifications. ok they stand u in good steed and every one always wants to do well etc.

but how many folk actually use half them qualifications?


life skills is where its at

I agree with laura. Ive studied and gained qualifications and my jobs becoming a uni profession these days but yknow what, i would give it all back and work street sweeping as long as i had enough to come home to my c fish every evening. My best qualification in the world reads Diploma Mummy. Yes thats sad but i dont care

Qualifications are only worth something if you apply the learning from them. For me the most important skills are common sense and emotional intelligence.

I used to work with a woman who had so many qualifications she had to have an extra line on her business cards but she had minimal common sense and no emotional intelligence and was a nightmare to work with.

well i got

ICT (GNVQ) - A A A
RE - B
Geog - B
English Lit - B
English Lang - B
French - C
Art - C
Maths - D D
Science - D D

I went to Catholic school where u had to take RE as a GCSE and we didnt do humanities so had it all as different subjects. I did double maths and double science and i think the gnvq is the equivalent as 3 gcses x

^^thats probibly why i have 11, because of the RE didnt even think about the fact that people who didnt go to religious schools dont do RE GCSE x

I have the regular amount of GCSEs (too long ago to remember how many!), 4 A levels, 2:1 in Linguistics and Psychology, after uni got a post graduate qualification in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, which I've been doing as a job ever since. When I came to Japan I started studying Japanese (would have been more useful to study *before* I came though! ) and a few years ago passed the highest level of the Japanese language proficiency test, and I'm now thinking about doing either an MA in Translastion skills or a some kind of post grad course in Translation skills so I can become a Japanese - English translator

Sounds like a lot of qualifications, but to be honest all of them were done with a job in mind - I changed my degree in my first year of uni, as the one I started out doing wasn't very useful, so changed it to Linguistics so I could do teaching/translation or working with children with language delays as I'm interested in all of those things.. and now I'm only considering translation as it's a wee bit better paid than teaching! Otherwise I wouldn't put myself through the stress! I love love love my job to bits, and think I'd love translating, it's like sending my brain to the gym.

I found out along the way I was pretty organised at running my own business, and was making good money until I got pregnant, which I was surprised at because i'm really scatty in real life and can't organize my way out of a paper bag in my private life. I'm crap at anything that involves spatial awareness like parking, or remembering which stick was the windscreen wipers and which the indicators in my car

I agree that common sense is the most important thing and having some life experience. That said the way things are going nowadays our kids will not have a chance of a decent job if they don't get qualifications so I hope that Lily will be a good girl at school