The course begins.
Nerves fill the classrooms. First-year ESO students arrive at the high school where they will spend their next few years and, beyond the hallway, a 2nd-year Baccalaureate A class.
Introductions have already been made, and now it's time to talk about the dreaded, hated, and unknown PAU.
The test that will decide my future. The one that, apparently, with its score, will say what I will do, which university I will go to, and, above all, what will become of my life.
And spoiler alert: no.
No one stops to explain in detail what the Selectividad actually consists of. It is spoken of as if it were a kind of border between success and failure, between having a future or not having one.
And yes, the test is important.
You have to study it, prepare for it, and give it your all. Its result can determine what academic options are available at that moment and which path is easier to take.
But it does not have that magical power that is attributed to it for months.
It is not the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter.
It does not have the power to decide which path a life will follow.
Because the future is not decided by a test that lasts a few hours.
We build it ourselves, every day. Little by little. With the decisions we make, with the times we try, with the mistakes we make, with the opportunities we seize, and also with those we let pass.
The PAU can be a door.
But it is not destiny.
So study. Make an effort. Ask for help. Give it your all.
But do not let a grade convince you that you are a success or a failure.
Because when you look back in a few years, you will probably discover that that exam was important.
But it was not the one that decided your life.
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