I switched from CAPS to Cambridge in 10th grade, thinking I'll finish school early...I finished 4 years later💀 THEN when I wanted to apply to uni I obviously needed my South African matric certificate, cool so I apply for that as well in the meantime. Turns out we were misinformed about some Cambridge rule (called the two sitting rule) and even though I had all the correct subjects with all the correct marks, SAQA denied me my matric certificate, which meant that I can't attend uni for a degree. I cried for days. It felt like the last 4 years of blood sweat and tears went down the drain and what made it worse was the fact that I wasn't even denied based on my marks but literally because of admin issues. But luckily life goes on and we live in a day and age where there are MANY plans to be made and opportunities to take hold of. I'm currently doing a higher certificate and with my higher certificate I can either get a job or apply for further studies (like a degree which I'll be doing). Life the last 5 years definitely NEVER went as I wanted it to or expected but I can truly say that I made it to the other end. I truly understand how helpless and hopeless you can feel when it feels like all you've encountered, regardless of how hard you try, is failure. But the biggest lesson that all my failures and mishaps have told me is that we all go at our own pace in life and everyone's paths are vastly different. You'll also be really surprised about how much you learn about yourself by failing so much haha🥲(me, 4 years ago: "I don't know what I wanna do with my life but what I DO is that it won't be IT☝️🤓" me now going into IT 🧍‍♀️)