Oh, and by the way…

I’M FINISHED WITH COLLEGE!

Yes indeedy, that’s a chapter of my life that lasted two years which has now ended. At the time it dragged, but now I look back and I realize that it’s all been a bit of  a blur. Compared to secondary school, college seems to have flashed by in the blink of an eye. That’s not to say I’ll particularly miss it – it’s had its ups and downs, and unfortunately the downs have outnumbered the ups – but I will miss the friends I made there, particularly my best friend – I’ll see her over the summer and I’m determined we’ll meet up, but we’re going to different universities so I’m going to miss her.

So much has changed since I started college in September 2010. I was sixteen years old, probably a lot more immature and completely unprepared for what college had in store. I was scared that the work would be ridiculously hard and, to my surprise, it actually wasn’t – it was a step up from GCSE, that’s for sure, but it wasn’t as insanely hard as everyone said it was going to be.  I wasn’t prepared for the drama it would send my way – I think I left college with a few less friends than I started with, but it all happened for a reason and I’m so happy now that I wouldn’t change a thing that happened.

And now here I am – in three weeks and a day I’ll be eighteen years old, and in September I’ll hopefully be off to university. I’m feeling pretty nervous about it but really excited too – and hopefully in three years time I’ll be looking back on uni wishing the experience wasn’t coming to an end, rather than celebrating the fact that it’s over.

Moom’s Views: Illiteracy

I was really shocked today to discover that in Wales, 40% of children enter secondary school with a reading age that is more than six months below their real age, and 3.8 million children in the UK do not own a single book, according to the National Literacy Trust. My first question was, “How?”. How can this happen? And also, is it any wonder that young people are struggling to get jobs these days, when they cannot read at the level they should be reading at?

I know that for some, it’s not through lack of trying – conditions such as dyslexia can seriously affect literacy. However, in many, it seems to just be that their parents never encouraged them to read when they were younger, and that indifference to literature has continued as they’ve aged. Personally, I can’t imagine a life without reading. Not being able to read would mean not being able to write, and for me – when I’m looking to pursue a degree with a high element of writing – the ability to read is absolutely vital. Regardless of that, I love reading – I always have been. My parents have always encouraged me to read from a young age, reading books to me before I could even read myself.

By the age of six, I was reading Harry Potter and by the age of eight or nine I was getting through books like there was no tomorrow – it only took me a few hours to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which wasn’t a small book by any means, at the age of nine. It really shocks me that there are some children who, even at the age of eleven or older, are unable to read – even simple magazines or small books.

I don’t quite understand why – there is the stigma that books aren’t cool, or that they’re for losers, but I’m pretty certain that when these people who say these things get to the age of about eighteen, when they’re stuck with no money, no job and no prospects of going to university/furthering their education – or probably older, depending on just how immature they are -, they’ll look back and they will regret not learning to read when it was much easier, when their minds soaked up information better and they had the aid of teachers.

When I have children, I will always encourage them to read from a young age and make sure they never encounter the problems children these days are facing – and I hope they will learn to love reading in the way that I did, and reap the benefits in the way that I am doing now.