This time of year brings adults many memories and nightmares of when they sat their Junior and Leaving Certificate exams. The stress, pressure, and demands that it brought comes flooding back to our minds like the wet weather we have outside nowadays. We recall studying in the usual “fine weather” that seemed to occur almost coincidentally each year when the exams began. The heat, the pressure, looking at your friends playing outside and having to stay indoors and keeping your in head in a book- it all seems like only yesterday!
But, spare a thought for today`s Junior and Leaving cert students. Of course for us adults we look at them and tell them it`s not the biggest thing in life, as it just to be for them right now. But, for them, right now and in the future it just may be. For we are living in strange economic times where most youngsters not only complete a college degree course but choose further study and still are forced to emigrate to find some adequate employment. Each hour of study and each exam brings added pressure at present as appose to even ten years ago for students. When the youth of today look back at their memories of exams will they recall the pressure? Undoubtedly. Will they recall the stress? Surely. Will f nightmares surface of these difficult days for years to come? Most likely.
On the flip side though, let’s hope that they will have sunshine of the final few exams in those memories. Then for us all we will recall the Junior and Leaving certificate exams of 2015 as a warm glowing time! Summer has to begin sometime, right? Why not now!