It’s that time of year when exam results day rolls around; a time of stress and anxiety for anyone awaiting results.

I like to share my story about my route into physiotherapy: I didn’t take the conventional School -> Uni -> work linear route so there is hope for those maybe not receiving the results they had hoped for!

I started off on the traditional path, and picked A levels based upon the fact that I wanted to study Physiotherapy at Uni: Biology was a given, Psychology was one that interested me, and the final one was a toss up between a language or Chemistry.  Sadly I picked the latter!

Biology was fine, I could have worked harder but just didn’t! Psychology was taught by a local college rather than my school, and in my opinion was badly taught: a print out of a book chapter was issued and the teacher read it out to us…. Needless to say my attendance rate was rather poor as I didn’t see the value in going to sit through that!  And then there was Chemistry… whilst organic chemistry was logical, it was the mathematical side of things that let me down: energetic and thermodynamics were too much for my brain.

I came out with CCDD; not horrendous but no where near close enough to get into a course as competitive as physio… so I decided to ‘go with the flow’ and increased my hours at the shop I had worked at through sixth form.

I loved my work in retail; working with a great team and learning valuable skills for working with the general public.  I did this for a couple of years before deciding it wasn’t where I had planned to be in life and I needed to get back on track.

I managed to obtain a physio assistant role locally, which again gave me skills and insight into my potential future profession.  Whilst working I went to night school at the local college to re-do my A level Human Biology.

In 2007, at the ripe old age of 24 I then headed to Uni to study Physiotherapy, just 6 years after most of my peers but I can’t dispute the fact that those years out gave me ‘life skills’ some of my younger counterparts perhaps weren’t as skilled in.

Fast forward 12 years and I not only completed my BSc with honours, I have also completed a MSc in Veterinary Physiotherapy, and recently a PGCert in First Contact Practice.

So to those who are worried about results, and maybe not getting the results you were hoping for: don’t give up on your dreams!  If you want it badly enough you will find a way around it and make it happen. It may not the the ‘traditional’ route: but who wants to be normal anyway!?