{"id":478743,"date":"2026-06-02T06:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T06:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/478743\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T06:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T06:54:09","slug":"im-going-to-do-medicine-student-who-left-school-in-second-year-now-aiming-for-top-lc-points-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/478743\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m going to do medicine\u2019: Student who left school in second year now aiming for top LC points \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leaving Cert<\/a> weather arrived with a vengeance last week, to the joy of all those not sitting State exams \u2013 but to the perennial horror of exam students, maybe particularly this year\u2019s ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sun is shining in at me and I\u2019m in my room,\u201d 18-year-old Kayleigh Quinn from Meath says. She\u2019s preparing for this year\u2019s Leaving Cert exams, even though she left school in second year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was younger I just didn\u2019t settle in, in first year,\u201d she explains. \u201cI think it was because we were obviously the Covid year. We didn\u2019t have sixth-class graduation. We went in and it was all masks and everything, so I just didn\u2019t get on. I didn\u2019t make any friends. Second year came and I was like, \u2018No, I can\u2019t do this\u2019. So I just stopped going to school. My parents didn\u2019t really know what to do with me.\u201d <\/p>\n

In spite of this, she still sat the Junior Cycle exams. \u201cYouTube<\/a> and ChatGPT<\/a>\u201d, were her learning tools of choice, she explains. \u201cI was really disillusioned with education. My mental health got so bad, I ended up in Temple Street<\/a> for a while \u2026 It was the best thing that ever happened to me in retrospect. And it was one comment from a psychiatrist – she just said, \u2018Well, we don\u2019t expect you do your Junior Cert there\u2019 and it was just like, \u2018Well, I need to show them now\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a mere two months before the exams were due to start. She sat the exams as an external student. The experience, she says, gave her the confidence to take the Leaving Cert exams, and she\u2019s aiming high. Maximum points, to be exact. <\/p>\n

\"AcutelyAcutely aware of the high points needed for medicine, Kayleigh Quinn has applied to colleges in the UK, and she\u2019s received offers of places, subject to meeting grade requirements. <\/p>\n

Following the Junior Cycle exams, Quinn returned to school to undertake Transition Year, and volunteered with numerous medical charities. \u201cThat\u2019s when I decided, \u2018Right. I\u2019m going to do medicine\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quinn moved school in fifth year, and for the first half of the school year, she says her attendance was good. But after Christmas, her school attendance began to trail off. \u201cThe exhaustion hit me again. I got really moody. My parents noticed it as well, and I wasn\u2019t really retaining any[thing]\u2026 my teachers tried their best, but just being in the classroom environment, I found it really hard to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

She made a decision not to return to school and to study for the Leaving Cert herself at home. \u201cI invested in some of the study platforms,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Short absences from school linked to lower Leaving Cert grades, study findsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Acutely aware of the high points needed for medicine, Quinn has applied to colleges in the UK also, and she\u2019s received offers of places, subject to meeting grade requirements.<\/p>\n

Knowing this helps her manage her anxiety. <\/p>\n

As the exams approach, she\u2019s feeling most comfortable about biology, but admits she\u2019s dreading English and physics.<\/p>\n

So why is the first exam such a dread for her?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really bad at making stuff up on the spot,\u201d she says, laughing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leaving Cert weather arrived with a vengeance last week, to the joy of all those not sitting State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43491,2670,17163,61,60,3184,43,28205,2055,127509,42415],"class_list":["post-478743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cao","tag-chatgpt","tag-classroom-to-college","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leaving-certificate","tag-news","tag-second-level","tag-students","tag-temple-street-hospital","tag-your-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}