Btec extended diploma in public services

what could I do after BTEC EXTENDED DIPLOMA IN PUBLIC SERVICES ? Uni,employment etc ...

Probably a better question is: "I want to do x. How do I get there?"

If you want to go to uni, then you will be better off doing A Levels. If you want to go straight into employment, and you know what sector you want to work in, then a BTEC may be better. If you want to go straight into employment after college, then the broader base provided to you by A Levels may be a better option, as it will close fewer doors to you.

In direct answer to your question, I believe a BTEC in Public Services is meant to lead you into careers in areas including the emergency services. However, I've only ever met one person who had that qualification, and they were working in a call centre selling double glazing. It's only anecdotal, but you'll have to find out about the employment statistics (and not just if they have a job - what that jobs is) for that course. Those people who I know who work within the police / NHS etc. have gone down a more traditional academic route (A Levels followed by uni) and then applied for a job in those sectors.

Not much.

Well that depends, what are you interested in?
There is a lot you can do with Public Services, a few of my friends are doing it at the moment.
One of the most popular routes is into any of the armed forces, in fact you'll probably find this course is mainly geared towards the armed forces in its content which disappointed my female friend who was aiming more for the police service so if you don't have an interest in the military or joining it, you might want to think about this a bit more.
Also, it can commonly lead to a Paramedic Science degree but you'll have to check which universities take this and which don't if you're interested.

Reply 4

threeportdrift

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by Junglist_

what could I do after BTEC EXTENDED DIPLOMA IN PUBLIC SERVICES ? Uni,employment etc ...

Original post by Redheaded_Dancer

One of the most popular routes is into any of the armed forces, in fact you'll probably find this course is mainly geared towards the armed forces in its content

You may want to check this with the Armed Forces Careers Office. Last time I heard, they thought it was a joke. They'd much rather GCSEs and A levels.

Reply 5

CyclopsRock

Never been a better time to get into public services!!

Reply 6

Redheaded_Dancer

Original post by threeportdrift

You may want to check this with the Armed Forces Careers Office. Last time I heard, they thought it was a joke. They'd much rather GCSEs and A levels.

It largely depends on what you want to do but, at the end of the day, Level 3 BTECs are equivalent to 3 A-Levels if I remember correctly and still count for UCAS points if you wanted to go to uni.

I've just checked the RAF website and it says here that they accept this as equivalent to A-Levels, see http://www.raf.mod.uk/careers/rafcms/mediafiles/1F7F476E_5056_A318_A80987E0E0F85D83.pdf for more details, you'll have to scroll down a bit to find the bit that involves BTECs.

Reply 7

Origami Bullets

Original post by Redheaded_Dancer

Before OP gets too confused - although it is often stated that BTECs are equivalent to A Levels, the reality is rather different. The better universities certainly prefer A Levels, and some will not take BTECs at all, so by taking a BTEC they would be limiting the choices that they have in terms of going to university.

Reply 8

Redheaded_Dancer

Original post by Origami Bullets

Like I said, it largely depends on what you want to do. I know that some paramedic science degrees accept Level 3 in Public Services, but you're best off looking for the ones that do before pinning your hopes on something you might not be able to achieve.
Any university that considers BTECs to be inferior to A-Levels is not a university you want to go to... that's just elitism.

Reply 9

Blazinq

I'll be studying a btec extended diploma in public services in september and hopefully be going to university after it to study criminology or physcology

Reply 10

littleone271

Original post by Blazinq

I'll be studying a btec extended diploma in public services in september and hopefully be going to university after it to study criminology or physcology

*psychology

It's not too late for you to change your mind and I would actually highly recommend you did. If you want to go into social sciences at uni then you'd be much better off either doing science or even health and social at BTEC. As far as I know, public services BTECs aren't particularly respected and ironically it seems to be the course that's being affected the worst by the cuts in the education system. At the college I went to it's practically been cancelled. Universities want to see proof of scientific knowledge for studying psychology so you really are better off doing a science BTEC even though it might seem slightly irrelevant.

I recommend forensic science which is what I did and I'm now going on to study psychology and criminal behaviour at bedfordshire. It has quite a bit of science in it but not as much as medical or applied and you learn about the legal system, criminology etc. depending on what units you do. I could have gone to Portsmouth which is supposedly more respected than bedfordshire. I got the offer and the grades but I just didn't like the uni. They wanted DDM which I got and before they made me the offer they e-mailed me asking me for a list of my units because they wanted to know the scientific content of my course. In theory I could have actually got into any uni in the country that offers forensic psychology. I wasn't too worried about my options being narrowed down a bit because the stuffy universities don't seem to offer the course I want to do anyway.

Basically... by doing a BTEC you're generally limiting yourself to the mid range universities and lower. However, this is only a negative thing if you're able and prepared to do A-levels and learn a load of useless rubbish that you'll never use bearing in mind you're expected to excel in learning this useless information. BTECs are actually applied to the industry, they're much more specialised. This means that you can do forensic science for instance and be in a better position for a forensic science degree (in theory) than someone who did all 3 sciences at A-level and got straight As. They have more proof of intelligence but they've had to learn an awful lot of irrelevant information in order to prove their level of intelligence. You wouldn't have to learn all the stuff that they've had to thats irrelevant to forensic science and you'd have the advantage of relevant information. You'd already hopefully be capable of thinking like someone working in the field whereas they wouldn't know the first thing about crime scenes etc.

If I'd wanted to go to Portsmouth and I did A-levels then I would have needed AAC/ABB at A-level. I would have had to get at least B in a science subject and get decent grades in two other subjects. No matter how you look at it, I would have had to learn a lot of stuff that I'd NEVER use. I probably won't ever use some of the stuff I learnt on my BTEC but I'd say about 90% of it was useful and at least it was interesting and relevant to the real world, not just a school subject gone too far and into unnecessary detail. When it came to the bits I hated I still had to learn and understand it but I could forget about it after writing the assignment. I didn't have to keep going over it for an exam to test my useless knowledge bank.

However, you can't just pick any old BTEC. Psychology is an academic subject so if you want a chance to get into a mid-range university then you need to pick an academic BTEC. Public services is not an academic BTEC. It might be ok for doing Criminology at certain universities but I doubt ANYWHERE would take you for psychology unless you wrote a really good personal statement, had amazing GCSEs and got DDD.

In short... By doing a BTEC you're committing yourself to learning far less useless information which is a plus and most people will get higher grades in a BTEC than they will in A-levels BUT with A-levels the sky is the limit and with BTECs there is a ceiling... You're not going to get into the top 10 unis with a BTEC. In psychology you're highly unlikely to get into the top 40 because of how competitive it is. You're more likely to fail A-levels though and then you wouldn't be going anywhere. Just make sure you choose the right BTEC. The subject is incredibly important and you're closing an awful lot of doors by choosing public services.

Also what grades did you get in your GCSEs? Mainly interested in your grades for maths, english lang, english lit, sciences. I know Portsmouth wanted a B in GCSE maths from me and apparently practically half of psychology is statistics so it's important to be good at maths.

Reply 11

littleone271

Original post by Origami Bullets

I don't think a BTEC is necessarily limiting choices as such.

For instance... Although I changed my mind and I'm not going there.. I'm going to use Portsmouth (my highest offer) as an example. If I had wanted to go there with A-levels I would have had to achieve ABB/AAC (320 UCAS). Even if I chose the most relevant subject combination I could think of I'd still have to learn, retain and revise a huge amount of useless information which I wouldn't be prepared to do because I find it a little bit soul destroying. I don't have the right attitude for A-levels because I'm more of a practical thinker and I find it impossible to motivate myself if I really have 0 interest in a topic.

I never would have got ABB at A-level but I got DDM at BTEC because the topics were interesting and even though I had to practically cram the whole course into one year, (self teaching a lot of it) and spend around 80-90 hours a week doing coursework - I was motivated to work really hard because I loved 90% of what I was learning because it was interesting and relevant to the real world. I wasn't having to learn the tiny details of plant biology in order to learn about the human body like I was at AS biology.

BTECs also encourage independence in a way that A-levels don't. I carried out my own individual scientific investigation and planned an experiment to test it using a combination of techniques I'd learnt etc.

I recently said on a BTEC forum to a BTEC hater that if you put a good BTEC science student and a good A-level science student in identical laboratories and gave them each a sample of a known compound of an unknown concentration, the BTEC student would find the concentration the quickest. To be honest I was expecting something at least mentioning Beer's law which is the obvious way of working it out to anybody who has ever been given that task before. He replied something along the lines of "it's not that hard to read off a conical flask". Classic example of a spoon fed A-level student.

With BTECs there is a ceiling in so far as not all universities accept them but in my case, none of the anti-BTEC universities offered courses I wanted to do anyway and A-levels weren't for me.

Doing a BTEC was the best decision I ever made.

Reply 12

DRJB

Original post by Junglist_

what could I do after BTEC EXTENDED DIPLOMA IN PUBLIC SERVICES ? Uni,employment etc ...

I have just completed a BTEC level 3 extended diploma in public services. To those who believe that this course is not at all academic, could I just point out, that in order to complete this course (to a high graded level) you are expected to undertake copious amounts of research, leading to completion of a variety of detailed reports and essays amongst many other assessments.

Can this qualification lead to university? Yes, in my experience, completing this qualification as opposed to (traditional) a levels has not limited my opportunities to attend university. I have successfully applied to and have been accepted on a BSc undergraduate course starting in September 2013, at The University of Surrey (ranked 8 in the guardian league table and 13th in the complete university guide). Many friends of mine, who decided to go down the traditional a level route, have failed to secure places in universities ranked remotely close to Surrey. Thus, this myth that BTEC's hold far less value than a levels is clearly inaccurate.

A decision to complete either a levels or a BTEC should come about from an individuals preference of study, not from a swayed opinion purely convinced through reading naive individuals inaccurate and irrelevant opinions on TSR.

Reply 13

CDS_96

What are you studying?

Reply 14

ashlea1996

Hi i want to study forensic science, what course did you study at college to get into forensics?
Many thanks

Reply 15

Cuunty

I have just tried to apply to job the army as an officer and they don't recognise the Btec level 3 diploma as a qualification. So to be honest it's a waste of time as not even the armed forces see it as a qualification.