From School Leaver to Law Graduate, Anna’s Story

At 17, Anna Jakobek left secondary school without a Leaving Certificate.

Today, at 25, she has completed a law degree at University College Cork and built a career helping people find work.

Her journey from one point to the other was anything but straightforward.

Originally from Poland, Anna moved to Glanmire in 2005. At school, she was the student teachers wanted in their classrooms: hardworking, enthusiastic and academically gifted.

“I was the teacher’s pet,” she laughs. “I really enjoyed studying.”

For years, Anna assumed her future would follow the traditional route. She would finish secondary school, sit her Leaving Certificate, go to university and eventually begin a career.

But during her teenage years, severe bullying changed everything.

However, plans changed when bullying took over Anna’s days at school. Instead of learning and thriving, Anna was being harangued and harassed. This took a massive toll on her mental health, something needed to change. 

“I just knew that I had to leave and that I could not just be in the same building anymore,” she says.

The decision was devastating for Anna and her family. None of them realised that leaving school without a Leaving Certificate did not mean that education was over.

“There was no information,” Anna says. “No one even talks to you when you get to that point and says, ‘Hey, I know that you’re struggling with the mainstream system, there’s X, Y, and Z community training centre, or Youthreach that can help you finish your education.’”

After leaving school, Anna began working full-time at 17, taking jobs in the food industry.

But despite working and trying to move forward, she says she was not healing.

“No matter where I worked or what I did in Ireland, I wasn’t actually healing mentally at all.”

At 18, Anna decided to make a fresh start in London. She moved there with one suitcase and began working, first at Itsu and later at Joe & The Juice.

For Anna, the move offered something she desperately needed: a chance to start again without the expectations and experiences of her past following her everywhere.

“Nobody knew who I was,” she says. “No one knew that I didn’t have a Leaving Cert or anything that I was going through. Instead I was just Anna, that moved over from Ireland and was 18 and starting a brand new life.”

But the new beginning was short-lived. Anna had moved to London in late 2019, just months before the Covid-19 pandemic brought widespread closures.

Her workplace shut down, she lost her job and, after spending several months trying unsuccessfully to find work, she returned to Ireland in the summer of 2020.

When she arrived home, her mother gave her an ultimatum.

“She said, ‘You either go back to work or you go to school.’ And that was my motivation to go back and actually continue my education.”

It was the moment that set Anna on a completely different path.

Unsure what she wanted to study, Anna returned to an area she had enjoyed at school: business.

She began with a Level 4 course in general office skills at Mayfield Training Centre before progressing to a Level 5 in Business at the College of Commerce.

By the time she completed her Level 5, many of her peers were preparing to enter university. Anna, however, still wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.

So she stayed on and completed a Level 6 in Advanced Business with a legal specialism.

That course introduced her to employment law teacher Paul Cotter, who encouraged Anna to consider studying law.

“He was one of the reasons why I went into law, and actually believed that I could do law,” she says.

Anna credits the support she received during her alternative education journey with helping her believe that university was genuinely possible.

The next step was the CAO application process, with support from the College of Commerce helping her navigate the application.

Then came the moment she had once believed was impossible: Anna was accepted to study law at UCC.

The news arrived on her birthday.

“It was a really, really good birthday present,” she says.

Anna remembers the first time she set foot on the UCC campus as surreal.

After attending an orientation for students coming through QQI and alternative routes, she went home and cried happy tears.

“It was actually a reality, and then I made it.”

After years of believing that leaving school meant university was no longer an option, Anna could finally call herself a law student.

But getting there was only part of the challenge.

Coming into university through an alternative route meant Anna arrived without the network of friends that many other students already had.

“It was significantly more challenging to actually be on the course and to actually make friends,” she says.

While many students arrived with friends from secondary school, Anna was starting from scratch.

“You’re coming in knowing absolutely no one. You have to figure everything out on your own.”

It was stressful and frightening, but also incredibly exciting.

For Anna, the experience also changed her understanding of what an educational journey can look like.

When Anna left school, she had assumed that there was no way back. Her family had tried to persuade her not to leave because they believed that without a Leaving Certificate, university would no longer be an option.

“I wasn’t aware that there was alternative pathways whatsoever,” she says.

That lack of information has become one of the driving forces behind Anna’s advocacy work.

She believes there are many students who, like her, are capable and passionate about education but find themselves unable to succeed within the mainstream system for reasons outside their control.

“I knew that there’s so many people similar to myself that have a passion for education, that they can succeed in education, that they deserve to go to university, get a degree, and actually have a very good career, because they have the capabilities for it.”

Anna is critical of a system she believes can be too focused on academic outcomes and not focused enough on understanding why some students struggle.

“I don’t think that the mainstream system is equipped to understand that sometimes people struggle for things that are outside of their control,” she says.

She wants greater visibility around alternative pathways, so that students know that leaving the traditional education system does not mean leaving education behind.

Anna also wants to challenge the stigma surrounding community training centres and alternative education.

“The same girl that was doing the community training centre and just trying to do her best to actually get an education, it’s the same girl that was doing the law degree.”

She believes alternative education should not be viewed as a lesser route, but as a stepping stone.

A manager at Mayfield Training Centre once described the centre to Anna as a stepping stone that allows students to move on to the next stage of their lives.

And that next step does not have to be university.

“Not everyone is suited for a university education,” Anna says. “And I think that that’s okay as well.”

Her advocacy work has continued alongside her career.

For Anna, helping people has become a common thread running through both.

“I was once that scared 17-year-old who was struggling and begging for help, and had to figure everything out on her own, to actually go back into education.”

And that is why she wants other students to know that their story does not have to end when the traditional route stops working.

Anna’s own story is proof that an unconventional beginning does not have to mean an unconventional ending.

Leaving school at 17 did not close the door on education.

It simply meant Anna had to find another way through it.