My name is Max Howard and I am a self-employed freelance web-designer.

After finishing my GCSEs at Sir William Romney’s Comprehensive, I immediately went on to Cirencester College to study what I thought at the time were the subjects which would define my future and after two years of sub-human levels of concentration and dedication, I recieved two Bs and a C in English, Film and Sociology respectively.

While I wasn’t overly disappointed with the results I’d got, I did become slightly disillusioned with their worth. What I really mean is that they were results for subjects which meant ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to me and that I had chosen at an age where my life consisted of a short string of movies, a handful of books and the occasional quasi-intellectual debate about class separation.

So, fearful of dedicating time and money to a University course of no value (to me) and unwilling to find employment that offered future prospects lest I unintentionally succeed, I spent the next two years working in a number of different industries. While my work changed however, my habits did not and I would always find myself in front of a computer at the end of the day, designing websites, writing scripts and teaching myself the basics of computer programming.

Last year I had what some would consider an epiphany, (in fact it was just a very pathetic realisation of the obvious). After accepting where my talents lie I made the decision that I wanted to attend Edinburgh University to study Computer Science at their prestigious school of Informatics. I spoke with Edinburgh university and they told me that as a mature student I would not necessarily need the A-Levels they quote on their website, however not wanting to feel left behind and having accepted myself as an honourary nerd I enrolled at GlosCat SixthForm college and started a two year course studying Maths, Physics and Computing.

I also became self employed and began refining my web design skills and managed to land work with a local web design and development company this summer. Here I learnt more than I thought I could in such a short space of time and picked up skills I did not know I was capable of. They were extremely happy with my performance and I still work as outside developer for them, picking up projects when they have too much work on their hands.

I have now finished my first year of the two year A-Level courses and while it has been difficult readjusting to fulltime education, being signifficantly older than the other students who attend and having to travel far in order to do so I know it has been a worthwhile experience and I managed to obtain ‘A’s in most of my modules.

Now I’m out on my own, working for myself, prearing myself for further studying and beginning the process of Uni application. It may be a difficult year, but a least I don’t have to work in a bar anymore.