REBECCA BAIRD: Exams results were my entire teenage identity – and then I failed

Exam results week can be emotional, for pupils, parents, and even childless journalists in their 20s with no current school connections.

As schoolies across Scotland received their results this week, stories of flying colours and crushing disappointments filled my timeline, and I found myself recalling my own anxious wait for the big envelope.

Back when I was sitting my Standard Grades and Highers, I wouldn’t sleep for days before results came in.

On the morning the letters were supposed to arrive (I was too superstitious for the then-new email system) I refused to leave the house, having been unable to think about anything other than those shiny bright ‘A’s for the preceding 11 months.

Because those ‘A’s were my whole identity.

I was not a particularly funny teenager. Nor was I rebellious, musical, sporty or outgoing. I had friends, but wasn’t popular; the type of kid that was invited to parties, but was never missed by those who actually went.

I never went. I was studying.

Because the one thing I knew myself to be was clever. Or so I was told, every day from age five, by teachers, older relatives and most importantly, tests.

Exam results ‘don’t matter’ – but they did to me

Tests were my holy grail of youthful self-worth. They were so concrete, literal black-and-white measures of success.

It didn’t matter to me that they “don’t mean anything in the real world” (which, if you’re a school pupil reading this, they really, truly don’t).

I was not driven in the slightest by where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I didn’t know what that was. I only knew what I was – smart.

And I wanted the envelope to prove it.

So when mine did arrive, full of good news that was all but assured by my strict self-made (and self-enforced) study schedule, I would sigh with relief.

I’d done it. I’d held on to my one identifier. Yay?

After that, I’d sleep. For days.

I wonder now how much I missed in those summer comas. In the fug of anxiety beforehand, the shattering relief afterwards. The dates declined, the family meals spent distracted, chanting quadratic formulae and literature quotes in my head.

It all seems so outdated, so unnecessary for children in a modern world.

The main news story to come out of this exam results week is that pass rates in Scotland are going down, yet I have to believe there are better ways that our country’s kids could be using their brilliant brains than being taught to test.

In 2023, don’t young people have enough real-world stresses – climate change, the cost of living crisis, war, cancel culture, Eras Tour ticket resales – that exams are almost quaint by comparison?

Honestly, you couldn’t pay me a figure high enough to be an academically-inclined teenager today.

Then again, when I think back to that girl 10 years ago, I don’t feel regret.

Everyone fails, even straight-A students

It’s easy to see that her sacrifice put me in a good position. At 18, I could choose between some of Scotland’s top universities, and that’s not to be sniffed at.

But I do feel a twinge of pity. I was just a kid, putting all this pressure on myself for a thing which, 10 years later, doesn’t matter at all.

Because eventually, I did fail. Hard.

In my second year studying physics at Glasgow University, I struggled – really struggled – for the first time in my academic life. I fell behind, and after a lifetime of always just keeping up, I didn’t know how to catch up.

In one of my end of year exams, I got an ‘H’. I didn’t even know there were fail grades beyond ‘F’, but every day’s a school day I suppose.

I should’ve guessed, mind – I spent my mandatory 30 minutes in the exam hall crafting an elaborate drawing of a tiger, rather than answering any questions.

Needless to say, I dropped out, and found myself a personality in the process.

I had to! In one fell swoop, my entire identity was gone. Smart girls don’t get ‘H’s. And yet here I was, still alive, so I must be something other than smart too, right?

‘Grades do not define you’

A hefty existential crisis, a different degree and several haircuts later, I realised that I’m many things other than book smart. I’m a good listener, a decent cook, a cemetery enthusiast and – most importantly for my career path – a storyteller.

I didn’t know any of that when I was getting As at 18.

I also figured out that (spoiler alert) the point of life actually isn’t to get good grades. In fact, the point of education isn’t even to get good grades.

The point of both, I think, is to learn stuff.

So whether you’re celebrating or commiserating this exam results week, remember this: grades do not define you. You will not be remembered for them.

You might, however, be remembered as “the tiger lassie” if you opt to draw jungle cats in a physics exam. Just a warning.