STRUGGLING to decide which life path to take now your A Levels are over? Here’s a helpful guide to ensuring an unhappy future, whatever happens.
University
If you dream of racking up a £90,000 debt on Super Noodles and Bulmers, university could be the perfect choice. From Russell Groups to polytechnics, you’ll get to meet plenty of entitled tossers wherever you go. There is no escape from the middle and upper class, who believe university it is a human right, just like free speech or a NutriBullet. Opt for halls accommodation to experience true filth, substandard living and an abundance of unused George Foreman grills. Spend your days desperately avoiding your awful flatmates, who will suddenly appear in the communal shower like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn.
Will you remember anything you learned on your course? No, but you’ll have plenty of memorable anecdotes. Reminisce about getting locked out and sleeping in a hedge, or having a mental health breakdown and spending an entire evening crying under your desk. You’ll also have plenty of late nighters, panic-writing essays you worried about all month.. At the end of your degree, you can look forward to an entry level job in an entirely different sector, because apparently nobody wants yet another Media Studies graduate.
Apprenticeship
Maybe instead of paying to work, you fancy the opposite? An apprenticeship could be for you. After beating thousands of eager applicants, you can bask in the glory of turning up for a day at work and nobody having a f**king clue who you are. Watch as hapless colleagues desperately try to find something for you to do, and turn pale whenever you mention your age.
For the first few months, you might find yourself staring into space, wanting to be helpful and becoming a general irritant. Before long, managers will realise they can palm any job off on the apprentice, and you’ll be working far above your pay grade with no wage increase. You can expect days weeping in the toilet cubicle, making coffee and becoming rota fodder. At the end of the apprenticeship you’ll have made some money, but will have spent it all on pints of San Miguel, trying to numb your depressing existence.
Gap year
If you want to bore friends in pubs for years to come, a gap year is the logical choice. Pronounced ‘gap yaah’, the general premise is to spend a year unemployed and anxious about your future, but in the sunshine. Gap year essentials include a backpack larger than you, a developing country, and a group of impoverished school children you can abandon after a week. Once you’ve got the charity work snaps for Instagram, head off to an iconic landmark like Machu Pichu, Angkor Wat or the Ibizan clubs.
There are plenty of opportunities to earn money on your gap year. Potential jobs include bartender, ski instructor, or a farmhand at your friend’s mum’s French chalet. It’s also the perfect time for personal growth: try getting a misjudged group tattoo, or smoking so much weed your mate goes a bit psychotic. At the end of the year you will have spent all your parents’ money, but at least you can live the rest of your life miserably nostalgic for the Full Moon party in Koh Phangan where you took some magic mushrooms and almost drowned trying to swim to the moon.
