What a feeling!

This is it. The letter they sent me to confirm my degree classification. They can't take it off me now!!

I left university halfway through the course the first time around. Truth is that the time probably wasn't right for me to be studying for a degree, the planets weren't aligned in the right way and the butterfly on the other side of the world wasn't flapping its wings for me. I think I had to work in a job I didn't enjoy for a few years so that I could truly understand the benefit of a university education.

I'm quite sure that passing the course when I was younger would have been easier, yet I don't think it would have been as rewarding. I'm also quite sure that I wouldn't have had anywhere near the success that I have enjoyed to date. Education is wasted on the young.

There have been some very difficult times over the past three years, times when I thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew, times when I really didn't understand the concepts that I was trying so hard to grasp. I was very lucky to have people behind me to support and encourage me through those times. F would sit and listen to me waffle on about legal concepts, asking questions and giving me ideas, all the time helping me to get matters straight in my head and to find out where I had gaps in my knowledge. 

One of the lowest points came when I got the result for my first coursework of the 3rd year. I handed it in full of hope and was dismayed to score only 50%. I made an appointment with the head of law who had marked my script and it would be fair to say that he didn't pull his punches - he tore that thing apart. I then went on to fail my formative exams miserably. That didn't bode well for getting grades good enough for a 2:2, never mind anything higher. I was so sure of my failure that I'd not even told F the date for the release of results until the day before.

I'm still not quite sure how I managed to get the results I achieved. I know I did a little bit of revision every day for about six weeks before the exams. I recorded myself making "journeys" out of my revision notes and listened to the recordings in the car and somehow all that information stayed in and subsequently came back out in a coherent form in the exams. I managed to get an A in every exam giving me 3 A's and a B overall - The B coming from Equity & Trusts which was the coursework that I'd failed so miserably.  

And now I've been awarded a first. The best degree you can get in a difficult subject. It feels good, even though I'm still concerned that the decision will be rescinded because there's been some mistake! Now, I have to repeat my success in order to achieve a distinction in the MLP. This time, I'm sure that I can do it. I think the shock of failure gave me a kick up the backside this year and I hope that next year, the power of self confidence and the knowledge that I can do it will spur me on to bigger and better things...