I wanted to have a little heart to heart with you guys. I know school starts again soon and I know a lot of kids and teenagers feel like it's a lot of pressure for them and don't look forward to it at all. So I wanted to share my high school and college experience so you know you're not going through it alone.

When I was in primary school kids thought of me as the shy but sweet girl and over all liked me. Only one kid bullied me and the only reason why she did so was because she needed attention and didn't get it by being nice to others. So after a few years we did became friends and moved on from all the bad things that happened. But that was easy because it was primary school and it's a world of difference compared to high school.

In my first year of high school I was in a class of mostly boys and only a handful of girls. Some guys even thought they were cool and found it funny to pick on the shy kids. Unfortunately I was one of them. I already felt really insecure because of the situation at home (being a foster child and having to deal with court dates at the age of 11 etc) So it didn't help at all that it was pretty hard for me to make friends. I did however had Tascha, who's been my best friend since primary school and we did go to the same high school. Yet I was very insecure for most of my high school years, I was the shy acne prone skinny girl that dressed funny.

Although in the first two years of high school my grades were pretty good and they even advised me and my parents to level up and go to ASO (I was in TSO the first two years). For those who aren't familiar with the Belgian school system there are 3 levels ASO (ex; Latin) - TSO (ex; IT) - BSO (Sales).
So I did that and chose to study Humanities, yet again it was a very bad period of time for me and at my first exams I failed. I failed big time. I failed for 5 exams and I knew I wouldn't be able to get my grades better. I didn't want to go a level lower either because maths was at the same level and I wouldn't pass that any way. So I choose to go to BSO.

My grades got up. I was one of the best in my class for English and stuff. Yet I felt like a failure for being in this class. In this level. Mainly because our school made it feel like you were a disappointment for studying at this level. A lot of teachers also felt this way and act like we were the dumbest people. And that hurt. And my confidence went low again.
They pushed us so hard to graduate and go find a job instead of pushing us to do an extra year and apply to colleges or universities.

I hated that so so much that I rebelled against it. Whenever a teacher tried to make me feel like I couldn't do something or said I couldn't even understand what a certain word meant just because of the level of class I was in I acted up. I acted up a shit load of times. In my last year of high school teachers started to talk about what our plans were after graduation. Some people said they wanted to go work because they were sick of school. Some wanted to go work and take some evening classes. I wanted to go to college.

Only one teacher fully supported me, and I'll be grateful to her forever for doing that. It was my ethics teacher. She provided me with folders and books and asked about my plans so many times during class. First I thought of studying photography so I went to Antwerp and got information at that school but it didn't feel right. After a while I found this brochure of a school in Genk. I went there and I fell in love with this one course; graphic design.

I signed up for the entrance exams and I passed. Yes they even asked me if I thought it was a good idea from studying at BSO level to a college level but I said and promised to give my all. And I passed. And I passed every damn 3 years of the course, with sometimes a little setbacks, but I got through it.

So whatever your grades are now, whatever level you're studying at, whatever your job is now, don't ever let them tell you you're not going to make it. You will if you really want to so don't let someone else define who you are.