WWN Guide To Coping With Leaving Cert Stress

BY now, the Leaving Cert is in full swing and across the county, boys and girls of LC age are fretting and worrying about how their performance will affect the rest of their lives.

It’s a lot of pressure to put on the shoulders of a 17-year-old (18 if you’re repeating, 19 if you should really just give up at this stage), but here’s a few tips that might help the average LC students to relax.

1) Just don’t do it

Just walk away. Get a job. You fucking hate school, you always have. All the LC buys you is the chance to go to more school. Ask yourself, do you really want to go to college or are you just doing it to please other people. If it’s to please other people, then what are you wasting your time for?

Seriously, just down your pens and walk out. Go down town and buy yourself a chicken fillet roll and a can of Coke and head to the park. Get some sun. You’ll get a job somewhere, some day. Granted, it might be on the lower end of the scale of things due to your lack of educational qualifications, but you might get lucky like Richard Branson and become one of the richest people in the world. Mind you, he succeeded thanks to his incredible work ethic and focus. You’ve just walked out of a three hour exam and lost interest in a chicken fillet roll half way through.

So maybe Branson-levels of fame and wealth might not be in the cards for you. But you like phoning people, right? Then you’ll love a job where you have to phone people all day, from a centre. You’ll be grand.

2) Ignore all that

Do the exam. The stress? Suck it up. This is big school, deal with it.