// education
A-Levels - Newcastle upon Tyne
At school, I would probably have been described as a "well rounded" student. Ironically, I dropped computer science as soon as I could, as I seemingly had no interest in it at the time.
I was that kid that actually really enjoyed exams, especially maths and science ones. Looking back, I would not say I was the smartest in my class in terms of raw ability, but I was a great systems thinker which allowed me to frequently get the highest mark on exams. Much like a software engineer reads the documentation before writing a single line of code, I would read the exam board specification cover to cover to understand exactly how the course was structured. From there I would build a system for myself to ensure I would not lose the knowledge by exam day, which involved a lot of repeated recall and applying it in practice papers. I did not realise it at the time, but that process is almost identical to how good engineers approach a new codebase.
Throughout my school years I was involved in many after-school clubs, from playing guitar in a band to designing miniature F1 cars. However, the one that really stands out is Law Club, where I got to appear in Newcastle Magistrates' Court for the first, and hopefully only ever, time.