Prospects damaged?

[odelp]

Hello! This is a bit longwinded but I just want to give some background.

I dropped out of my first year at sixth form college around november/december time. When I left school I didn't really have any idea what I was going to do, and I just went to college for the sake of going. Needless to say I didn't do very well as I had no aspirations in particular and for various reasons I dropped out. I still didn't know what I wanted to do, and decided to try to get a job in the meantime whilst I would try to work out what exactly it was that I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

That didn't work out too well either. I don't know whether I was unlucky or too lax in jobsearching but even now I still haven't found anything. My dad and I recently moved into a house that needs a lot of work though, so I have spent the time doing jobs on the house whilst my dad works, though I do obviously feel like a huge leech. I can't say with all honesty that I didn't enjoy the first couple of months of doing nothing although now I basically just feel a bit ashamed for not doing anything for such a long time.

However in the last month or so I became aware of the possibility of me going into the merchant navy. This is really the only thing that I've ever genuinely felt I could enjoy doing my whole life, and I'm a little bummed out I never looked at it before. I've thought about it for a long while and looked into it to make sure I would definitely want to do this.

So yeah, my question-

I'm planning to apply for places in january, as I hear courses begin in both september and january, and I'm assuming I'm far too late to apply for september. What I want to know is would the fact that I am a 17 year old who dropped out of college and proceeded to do bugger all for another five or six months be detrimental to the possibility that I'd be accepted? Would this damage my chances at all, even if there is nothing wrong with the rest of my application? Should I leave the fact that I attended college out? Or would that just make the fact that I've been doing nothing look even worse?


I'm sorry for the length. I probably could have just asked the question by itself now that I think about it.
That's a bad habit.

[Bulman]

hey mate, I think you have all the chance's, make sure while you're in the 'progress of doing bugger all' that you get some skills under your belt relevant to what you want to do.

I applied in November 2011 for this Septembers intake, I had also previously dropped out of 6th form at the age of 17 and didn't have the best of GCSE's in the world mainly C's, but when I dropped out of 6th form I got my self an apprenticeship in Industrial Electrical Engineering and only completed level 2 (one year of training you normally go on to do level 3 and 3 more years) and did some extra optional advanced maths and science, as all companies like it when you do extra things :P that's all i had when I first applied for a MN Cadetship, got in to do a FD degree route and all is good start soon woo!

If while at 6th form you got the 160 Ucas points for the FD route then go ahead and apply, but if you don't apply for the HNC/HND route but also start a new course for this September that has something to do with your path you want to take be it Deck, Engine or Electrical its never to late for college's. and don't forget even if you apply now and fail, you can always re-apply later on, I had a guy at my interview who had applied 6 months prier and got turned down but he re-applied and got another chance.

[HolyNougat]

You would need to be able to explain any gaps in your CV if you got an interview, because you are young it would be quite difficult to explain what you were doing if you decide to leave out the fact you attended college - a less than perfect past does not preclude you from a career at sea, however one thing recruiters look for is the ability to commit to things (obviously this an important quality for the profession) If your academic qualifications are not strong then you should look at ways of attaining a higher qualification in maths / science. As Bullman has said 'companies like it when you do extra things' - so think of ways of demonstrating that you can commit to things (DofE awards etc).
Also, just writing a great CV and Cover letter go a long way - put a lot of thought into this, sometimes a well presented CV will result in an interview when the candidate is not as strong as a competitor who makes the recruiter search for what he is look for....

[KirstyAmanda]

I went to uni for 2 years (doing 2 different courses!) before I dropped out, and when i was asked about it in my interview I told the truth - that i'd just wandered blindly into uni because all my friends were doing it, and I didnt really know what I wanted to do straight out of school.

I'd say be honest, I was, and I was successful with my application!

Good luck and dont give up hope!