Alex O'Connor

Who knows?

All that matters right now, you're good at some things and bad at others.

I think the best advice anyone can give in that regard is to figure out as quickly as possible what you're good at.

That's the most important thing.

What are you good at and what do you enjoy doing?

And try to pursue that.

And then realize that you don't have to go to university.

Even if you want to be a physicist or a mathematician, eventually you'll probably have to, but you don't have to do it now.

You can take some time out.

You can think, is this really what I want to be doing?

You can go and travel the world or whatnot.

If you really want to go down the academic route, there are always options available for you.

And there are so many now.

You can do them online.

You can do them virtually.

You can do them part-time.

There's always something available for you.

It's so obvious to someone who's an adult, someone who's currently working in a cafe and doesn't really know what they want to do with themselves.

It's not going to console them to say, hey, man, you don't need to worry about academia.

I didn't even think of that.