Kit’s engineering offers: King’s College London and Warwick
Kit leaves Sedbergh with offers to study Engineering at King’s College London and the University of Warwick, but his story is not simply one of academic success. It is also a story of self-awareness.
In this interview, Kit reflects honestly on the habits, people and experiences that helped him grow during Sixth Form. He speaks with characteristic humour about learning to understand himself: what motivates him, what distracts him, and why he needed the right people around him to keep him focused.
Rather than relying on ability alone, Kit recognised the importance of building a network of support and accountability. Teachers challenged him, encouraged him and helped him put structure around his ambitions. Alongside this, the breadth of Sedbergh life — from music and CCF to golf, boarding, school runs and the landscape itself — gave him confidence, perspective and resilience.
His reflections offer a thoughtful reminder that success is not always about having everything worked out from the start. Sometimes it comes from knowing yourself well enough to ask for challenge, accept guidance and build the structure you need to move forward.
Looking back, I think my teachers made the greatest contribution to my success. I have always had a tendency to sit back a little when things feel comfortable, and my teachers recognised that early on. Throughout Sixth Form, they kept challenging me, checking in and making sure I stayed honest with myself about what I needed to do. Over time, the message got through and my work ethic became much stronger.
The breadth of experiences at Sedbergh, along with my tendency to keep myself busy to avoid boredom, led me to take part in a wide range of opportunities, from music and CCF to golf. I think that mix has given me breadth as a person, which has also helped me academically. It has encouraged me to think more widely, approach problems with greater confidence and see the connections between different parts of school life.
My experience of confidence is probably not a common one. At the start of A Levels, I think I slightly overestimated how far natural ability alone would take me. I kept myself busy all year, enjoyed everything I was involved in, and learnt the hard way that success does not simply arrive at the end if the right habits are not in place along the way. A disappointing result in AS Chemistry gave me a real knock and made me realise that I needed to be more deliberate and consistent in my approach. In the end, that was an important turning point.
The stunning surroundings of the School, and particularly the school runs, have given me a sense of perspective. At a time when social media and the internet can make everything feel quite noisy, being in this landscape has helped me stay grounded.
Boarding has also changed my attitude to work. Instead of focusing too much on how long a task might take, I have learnt to focus on completing what needs to be done. Because Sedbergh life is busy and there are commitments every day, I have become more productive than I think I would have been elsewhere. I am not used to having weekends in the traditional sense, which I think will help me in life after school — either by making me more productive, or simply by making me appreciate weekends a lot more.
Sedbergh has also given me the ability to break down problems and the resilience to keep working at them. That is something I know I will use again and again in the future.