Psychology or French HL?

(It would mean A LOT if someone could help me with this asap!)

Ok so I have this huge problem where I just can't choose my 3rd HL subject. I either want to do psychology or French... So I'm already taking Biology and Chemistry HL and SL maths, english lit and either psych or french.

I want to study medicine on and I was told that psychology goes well with biology and will help me out. But I'm not that sure I want to do it HL as I have looked at the past papers and it just seems impossible. I mean, I've never studied it so I don't know if I will like it. Is it very hard at HL? And maybe there isn't much difference if I do take it SL?

For French, I'm kind of gutted that I'm not taking it HL (initially i put down SL) because I got an A* in my GCSE's for it and even my headteacher thought it was a little weird that I didn't take it HL. But I'm just freaking out over the workload, maybe it's going to be so hard and an impossible subject? I'm not that amazing at French but I love it and I would probably be a bit upset if I took it SL. I just don't know...

Please, if anyone knows, tell me about Psychology HL and French HL and which one it's worth to take, especially with the rest of the subjects I'm doing.

I'd really appreciate if you could reply asap as if I need to make a swap between subjects I'd do it as soon as I can. Thanks! :smile:

Reply 1

Neverme

If I were you I'd go for French HL. I don't take psychology but from what I know it involves a lot of essays and a lot of memorisation. Furthermore, if you haven't studied it before you don't really know if you'll like it enough to stand it at HL for two years. French B HL should be completely manageable for you as you got A* at GCSE. I take French B SL and the workload isn't at all bad, and none of my friends taking it at HL seem to have any problems with it.
Do you know anything about the respective teachers for those subjects at your school? Who your teacher is can make a massive difference in how much you enjoy the subject and how well you do.
Remember you can always start with one at HL, and if you don't like it, change within the first couple of months. I know people who changed subjects well into the second term, and it's much easier to change levels (i.e. HL to SL or vice versa). Lots of people fiddle around with their choices until they find something that suits them :smile:

Reply 2

notebooker

In terms of the amount of learning you have to do, there's a much bigger difference between Psychology HL and SL than between French HL and SL. So in terms of workload, since you already have Biology and Chemistry HL which will be a massive workload, I would advise you to go for French B HL.

That being said, if Psychology is a subject which really interests you then it is definitely manageable at HL. You have an extra HL paper and you learn an extra option. In all honesty I'm not crazy about the Psychology Paper 3 (which is the HL paper) but the extra option is very interesting (although that depends on what your school chooses). In terms of starting the subject from scratch, it's definitely manageable although I suppose it's a bigger risk as you don't know whether you will enjoy it or not. But as Neverme said, you can always swap around your HLs and SLs at the beginning of IB until you get the combination you're happy with :smile: