Options

It's GCSE Options selection time for many teenagers throughout the country, including Bach Jnr.

This is proving somewhat of a challenge as it's a big decision - after all, which one of us really knew aged 13 or 14 what we wanted to do when we grew up? 

Thinking back, at the age of 14, I wanted to be a lead singer in a band when I was older and then marry Morten Harket!

I talked about this at length with my friends, and it turns out that most of us are no longer doing the jobs for which we studied or trained originally either.

For example, a barrister is now an early-years teacher, a teacher is now an ordained Minister, and I'm - well, I'm not sure what my job title is these days, let's just say I'm not doing the job I thought I would be.  Things, life and circumstances change, and we just have to adapt to them.

I think the key is not to drop too many subjects which might prove useful in later life. 

With only an 'O' level in Biology science-wise to my name, I was never going to be able to go on and train to be a brain surgeon or similar.

Not that this was ever realistically an option - my Operation game proved that I didn't have the necessary steady hands required, given the chap's red nose lit up alarmingly on numerous occasions - but you get my point.

Initially, I had done well at Chemistry at secondary school, but then we got a different teacher who took to spending large chunks of the lesson in the prep room investigating the effects of nicotine on his respiratory system, and my Chemistry knowledge decreased dramatically as a result.

In fact, rather embarrassingly, it took me most of the first term to figure out that the moles he kept talking about weren't in fact little underground-dwelling furry creatures but Molecules of Elements.  Perhaps it's just as well for everybody that I didn't become a medic!