This month Payge shares her journey of self-discovery and the lessons she has learned since leaving school. She opens by acknowledging that, at the time, she didn’t know what she knows now.
Her story, much like many others, wasn’t without it’s challenges. Payge reveals that her path after graduation wasn’t as smooth as she had hoped
When I was at school, I didn’t know the things that I know now. Yes, leaving school was a milestone for me and it was difficult in 2017.
In the afternoons after school, I volunteered in our school library. I was young, but I always wanted to be a librarian since I loved books, and I still do to this day.
I didn’t tell my teachers about my dream, but it was in my diary – My Journey – one of the school programs I had in my school year where you had to write what you wanted before graduation, so you had a set plan for your future.
My past was a little different than that of yours. That is, if you’re still in school and have no idea what you want to be when you leave.
I’m not going to bore you with my life story on how much time I wasted after I graduated. I was 18 when I left. I can hear you saying “But you were meant to graduate when you were 17 years old?” Well, that was not the case for me. I was kept down two grades. I am 25 years old, turning 26.
If I could change one thing in my past it would be not having done a PATH. PATH stands for ‘Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope’. Having a PATH would have helped me plan my dream better or help me have more goals instead of relying on just one and being lost and confused after leaving school.
Knowing the PATH trio (three) members now, which I wish I had known when I was younger, has really helped me with planning my goals better and I have a lot more connections since knowing them.
What I wanted and needed to have changed my past was to know the right connections because when you meet people you don’t realise who they know and who they are connected with.