Why lockdown was a good experience for me

I am sure we have all had a difficult time after we had to say goodbye to our friends during the late March lockdown. Nobody expected this to happen and nobody would have known how long this would last or why it happened now of all times.

During the start of lockdown I was in Year 11 and I was underachieving and even failing some subjects. I was very demotivated and my mind-set was very negative. I thought I was doomed to fail. Despite showing no weakness or inner turmoil to anyone, I genuinely felt very hopeless. We were only months away from taking our final exams. I was aware that all my teachers thought of me as an underdog and I feel disappointed that I did not prove myself to them sooner.

Sometime around November, I realised I had to start pulling my weight and getting on with it because I believe in the quote that says: “Do not let mistakes weigh you down. Acknowledge them and take what you learn to move forward.” I had a hard journey ahead of me but even a misstep could be a step in the right direction. I had to give it a try – it was all I could do.

January 2020 was quite a difficult time for me. Revision was getting more intense - three 45-minute sessions per day plus any after school sessions that were happening. On top of all that I had personal things that I wanted to do such as working out. Once I got into the routine it was not overwhelming and it was surprisingly easy to follow.

Despite such intense progress; I had started too late. There was not enough time to cover everything, so I had some thinking to do. I only had two choices; I could either focus a little bit on all of my courses or I give it my all to the courses I needed to move forward. My goal was to get a grade 6 (B) in Maths and English with an additional five GCSEs. It was going to be a very tough job, but I had to keep myself motivated no matter what. Our second set of mock exams came, and I did a lot better (I doubled my grades in most of my subjects – all because I had faith in myself). However my biggest achievement was going from a grade 2 in Business to an 8. I was thrilled, for once I had faith that I would get the results needed to do the course I wanted to study.

In February 2020, tensions were high, but I persevered – I attended every after-school revision session I could just to get a little boost, even if I was the only one who attended. At that point, I had decided to only do the subjects that I scored well in and disregard the ones I failed in.

In March 2020 I heard reports that a virus had been found in China. At that point, the whole world was anxious – what if it spreads to other countries? What if we all get it? I had a feeling that for better, or for worse, we would all get it, we either survive it or we do not – no one is ever 100% safe.

My newly developed optimism shifted, and I felt like it was my instinct telling me that we may not make it out. That was just conjectured though. I feel very fortunate that I never personally got it. I am also very fortunate to not have any vulnerabilities such as breathing problems that could affect me. A decision needed to be made to keep everyone safe, so the government announced a nationwide lockdown that applied to social spaces such as schools. This was a very worrying time for me because I overheard someone in my class who said, “If I had known about this five years ago, I wouldn’t have bothered to do any revision.” That made me think – was it worth spending so much time revising? What about our results? If we are in lockdown, was all my hard work for nothing?

During the first lockdown, I assume we all thought that it was going to be easy, just sitting at home, resting, and doing nothing. It was only easy for those who could keep themselves busy. Admittedly, I spent lockdown very comfortably, in bed, playing video games (virtually) with friends. I am very grateful that my friends wanted to play games with me – even though we definitely spent more time on them than I would like to admit. My eating habits also changed during lockdown causing me to eat less, which was something I hoped would never happen again, so I had to quickly replace one habit with another. However, in doing so, I realised that I was wasting so much time doing nothing productive. There was nothing we could do during that time and I was no longer a part of secondary school, but I was also not a part of USP College yet. This is where I turned to my one passion and enjoyment which was technology. I started to experiment a lot more with it, doing much more advanced things that I never even knew were possible. To combat my habit of procrastinating and wasting time, I concocted a daily schedule for myself, to wake up at a reasonable time and get a lot of exercise done. This further motivated me to do more – to be more.

August 2020 was, for better or for worse, a time for me to start to focus only on myself. Sometimes a little selfishness does not hurt – it heals. I broke off a lot of social contact with my friends by staying off social media and hardly ever looking at my phone. It felt very wrong to do so, however, this was the only chance I ever had to focus on repairing the devastation this pandemic has caused to me. My mental health has most assuredly been the biggest challenge to start with, so much time spent alone does no good to anyone and therefore I needed either a hobby that I could do at home or perhaps something to keep me busy until college started. I did all of the work on the VLE before we started college and it reminded me of what school used to be, but I needed something more, a simple task a week was not enough for me. So once again I turned to technology, I bought a computer the size of a rubber and started using it for programming. I then came up with the idea of staying organised and found that to be a strong trait, having a calendar, to-do list and a timetable was hard to maintain but it certainly helped me to keep on top of projects, assignments and any important meetings I had.

In September 2020 I started college and it certainly was an exciting time for me because I was looking forward to doing my course, reuniting with my old friends and making new friends. I am happy where I am today. My teachers all think highly of me and I like that they want me to do well. When you are put in such a position, failure is not an option. I finally understand that knowledge is not everything, there are other factors like organisation, perseverance, and motivation which will help you much more in the future. My life has turned around and it is all thanks to the given situation. I had the courage to enrol as a Communications Champion at USP College. It truly does show how such a devastating experience for some can be very beneficial to others.

Dagomir is currently studying the Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in Information Technology. Click here to find out more about our IT courses.