Which subjects should I take?
Discussion about medicine applications and medicine.
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Which subjects should I take?Hello!
I'm 15 years old and I like the idea of a career in medicine; or in a hospital at least. I am very interested in medical science and I think it might come from the fact that I've been in and out of hospital since I was little and my mum is on dialysis at the moment too. I've always liked hospitals and been interested with different illnesses since I was little.
Anyway, I'm being asked to decide on my A Levels soon so I was just wondering what you recommend I take? I was thinking maybe Biology, Chemistry, Phycology and Applied Health and Social Care, or is that a bad idea? I'm not particularly great at science, although I'm not awful either and I am more than willing to put the effort in to improve my grade. I got a 'B' in my first science GCSE (January this year) which covered biology, chemistry and physics, and I am taking the second one next month.
Anyway, the college I'm looking at offers these courses;
• Applied Business
• Applied Health and Social Care
• Art and Design
• Biology
• Business Studies
• Chemistry
• Computing
• Critical Thinking
• Dance
• Design and Technology
• Economics
• English Combined
• English Language
• English Literature
• Extended Project Qualification
• Film Studies
• French
• Further Mathematics
• General Studies
• Geography
• German
• Government & Politics
• History
• ICT
• Law
• Mathematics
• Media Studies
• Music
• Music Technology
• Performance Studies
• Philosophy and Religion
• Physical Education
• Physics
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Spanish
• Statistics
• Use of Maths
Which do you think I should take? Seeing as I'm not too sure which aspect of the medical field I'd like to go into (but I think I deffinately would like to work within a hospital) I'm not too sure on what subjects I should choose.
Anyway, thank you very much for your help and good luck with everything! -
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Re: Which subjects should I take?Biology, chemistry and another two you enjoy/are good at. Maybe consider maths or physics, they're not strictly required for most places but are helpful. Try to avoid subjects which are less academic than others, as they are sometimes not counted by universities. The 'applied health and social care' course probably falls into that category.
Last edited by Elwyn; 02-05-2012 at 19:07. -
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Re: Which subjects should I take?Is health and social care actually an A level or is it a BTEC/NVQ or something? Lots of med schools won't accept those qualifications, they'll be looking for A levels or the IB.(Original post by Hellokitty112)
Which do you think I should take? Seeing as I'm not too sure which aspect of the medical field I'd like to go into (but I think I deffinately would like to work within a hospital) I'm not too sure on what subjects I should choose.
Anyway, thank you very much for your help and good luck with everything!
I'd pick Bio, Chem and two others, whichever you're interested in. -
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Re: Which subjects should I take?Certainly biology and then either chemistry or physics (I don't think it matters which, but someone else can verify that). Other than that, I'm not sure it matters a whole lot. I know medicine applicants who took English, others took maths, others French. Probably go with whatever you're interested in most will give you the best result.
This health and social care sounds interesting, but probably wouldn't be looked on too favourably at top medicine universities (too vocational). -
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Re: Which subjects should I take?If you're doing anything medical related, most universities will want you to have chemistry as well as biology, physics or maths.
I'm not familiar with Applied Health and Social Care but I suggest you look into it since some A Levels are less respected than others. The other three sound good though.
As an extra note, medical courses require a lot of work experience: voluntary, GPs, hospital settings etc. And these can take a long time to sort out so if you know you're interested in medicine, I suggest you start asking around. -
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Re: Which subjects should I take?Chemistry is demanded by ALL uni's for medicine and veterinary (except some special gateway courses for 'wrongly picked a-levels')
Biology similarly is required by most if not all.
About the others I'd just say something you enjoy, though other sciences are sometimes relevant to the course.
(People say that taking arts/humanities a-levels makes you 'more rounded' so is favoured, but I think that, although they may make you stand out, they're not actually favoured because the sciences are more relevant and often considered to be harder. I'd only do them if you genuinely want to/enjoy them.)
