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Geography, History, Media Studies or Child Developement??

Hi, so I'm in year 9 and I'm about to hand over my GCSE options. I'm stuck between Geography, History, Media Studies and Child Development. I want a career in medicine-I want to become a dermatologist. Please don't tell me to pick what I enjoy cause I enjoy all of them. Here my reasons for and against taking each. I can only pick 2 of the 4.
Geography- I've heard it's well respected by sixth forms and universities my level is quite good and I haven't really put effort into it so far.
History- I've also heard it's well respected and it's a 'traditional' subject. I'm also quite good at it but I'm scared I won't be able to remember key dates.
Media Studies- I find this quite enjoyable and if my career in medicine fails, my back up plan is a journalist but I think that if I do suceed, and everything's going to plan, I feel like it would have been a waste of time. Also, a lot of people say it's a pile of crap and it's not respected at all.
Child Development- I feel like this would be useful for being a doctor and it's a subject I really enjoy. I've heard you get a fake baby for a week as well :P But like the media studies, a lot of people say it's not respectable at all and I'll learn it all in uni.

I've already decided on German, Art, English, Double Science, IT, RS, Maths.

Which 2 out of the 4 options would you recommend I take?

Reply 1

SmaugTheTerrible

What you study at GCSE is of little importance on the career path you choose to follow or the course you decide to study at University.

History and Geography are the most repeatable of the bunch and if you think that you can do well in them then those would be the best.

You say you might want to go into journalism. Again what you study at GCSE will not make a difference. Still History is a FAR better option than Media Studies. The majority of journalists did not study Journalism or other Media related subjects. They studied subjects such as Law and History.

Child development just seems like a load of crap and will bot help you at all when applying for medical schools. It not a respected subject. Heck, I've never even heard of it before.

I did History at GCSE and really enjoyed it. Depends on you though. I didn't find the dates to be a problem and got really high grades in it.
History and Geography >>>>>>>>>>>>>Media Studies>>>>>>>Child Dev.

Good luck on whatever you choose though :smile:

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 2

Origami Bullets

Child development is a course that the brutally cynical would say is designed to try and discourage certain teenage girls from becoming teenager mothers. I know this isn't entirely true, but it's a very soft subject.

Media studies isn't a particularly well regarded subject to put it politely, and won't help you to become a journalist. Most journalists have degrees in subjects like history, English or politics, not media studies or journalism (really - go and look up some of your favourites on wikipedia).

If I were you I'd choose history or geography out of those four.

BUT I see you're only doing double science. If you have the option to do triple / separate science, then you really should do so, because science is very much central to medicine entry requirements, and without separate science there will be more of a leap from GCSE to AS.

Have you had a look at this? http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Medical_School_GCSE_Requirements