It’s June and you’re just about finish your A Levels. In fact finish school!! Once and for all!! Hard to get your head around when for the last 14 years going to school was as regular as breathing in and out. You’re also 18 so there’s not much you can’t do – drive, drink, vote, have a tattoo, get married…. But what to do first? It wont be long until you have to make some serious decisions. Do you go to uni, find a job, travel? But you have some time until results day. Just 9 weeks before those results. Nine care free weeks before you need to re-engage in life once again.
Before you make these major life decisions, step back a little and savour the next few months. Don’t waste them on the sofa playing FIFA 19. Get out and do something new everyday. Here’s some inspiration of practical things to do. It’s a bucket list for teens written by a middle aged man who cant remember what he did in those precious 9 weeks but wishes he’d done some of them.
1. Build a website. They take just a few hours and cost nothing. But you’ll begin to understand commerce. Forget French and Spanish. WordPress is the universal language. Everything is online and you need to be online and know how to stay online!
2. Learn how to take photographs. Real photographs! Stunning Photographs! Pictures say so much more than words. It doesn’t matter what you have to say because no one will even bother reading it if it doesn’t look gorgeous. Not selfies at the end of a stick. Express yourself. Capture colour, life and beauty.
3. Start your own investment portfolio. Sounds grand but its as simple as taking a bit of your beer money and buying some shares and watching the market. By the time you apply for a job you’ll have learnt how to buy, sell, lose and make money.
4. Take your bus driving test! Believe me, theres a huge shortage of good bus and coach drivers. Globally!! Finding them is like sniffing out truffles in the Forest of Dean. This is a skill for life. Wherever you go, UK, Europe, Africa, Asia you can get a job and earn your way.
5. Volunteer. Help someone who needs your help. However tough you think your life is and however hard done-by you think you are there are many many more with less. There’s no greater happiness than giving your time to help someone. It costs nothing and will empower you more than cash or materials ever could. It will help change their lives and might just change yours forever.
6. Visit your grandparents. Enough said. You will miss them and they have so much knowledge and wisdom to share.
You only have 9 weeks so make the most!