Should i do A levels or not? HELP

Today i should have started sixth form, only last night i had a small break down about whether or not it's worth doing etc. etc. & decided not to go in...
I'm a year 11 leaver, i want to do software engineering as a future career. Therefore i was going to do A levels and go to university, i chose Use of maths (Dynamics) well didn't chose but had to as i only got a B at GCSE; Physics; computing; history.
The lowest of my grades at GCSE was a B, computing and history i'm not to concerned about as i enjoy them most and think i could manage with them. Maths & physics however i just don't know if i'd be able to get even a C... I don't want to waste 2 years and having nothing to show for it.
My alternative, would be to do a lvl 3 Extended Diploma in ITC which i'm not to keen on. I just don't know if i'd be able to do A levels or at least make it worth it... Realistically, could i do software engineering at all? Most university i've looked at look for ABB AAC AAA?
Another thing is, i don't know anyone at sixth form; that got me really worried and upset as well. I just wasn't ready for the big jump from GCSE and 10 weeks off to suddenly going to college. Any advice is appreciated!

I did a BTEC in IT it will normally cover most content on A level Computing and will get you on to a Software Engineering degree as its worth 3 A levels, I am now doing a Computer Science degree at Royal Holloway, my friend did the BTEC and Use of Maths which could be an option? Or why don't you just pick 3 A levels and focus more on them as you won't need 4 for uni, you could do Use of Maths, Computing and something like Electronics/ICT or keep History as you enjoy it?

If i were to do Level 3 Extended Diploma in Information Technology (Ad) would i be able to get into uni to do Computer Science with that?

Sorry its not letting me see that link, but if it is just a BTEC L3 Extended Diploma then yes of course it will, i progressed from the IT Extended diploma to BSc Computer Science at Royal Holloway, also it might be worth asking if you cover any of the 3 programming units. Not that it matters in terms of your uni application but it will give you a good grounding for CompSci, do you know what sort of universities you are looking at yet?

This may sound like a stupid questions but how do i know it's BTEC? All i know is that it's 'L3 Extended Diploma in IT'

Best off asking the college because it could be an OCR course which isn't as well regarded as BTEC

Thanks for all the advice. I went down this afternoon and spoke to the Computing tutor, he basically said that i could go to uni with it no problem... there is units of programming and stuff so all that was good. It is a BTEC Level 3 extended & more or less what i want to do. He looked at my grades and said they were the best he's seen that year so there's no issue in me doing the course and there's extra things i could do to prepare for university

That's good! Try and go for top grades most top unis will ask for DDD (which is 3 'A' grades at a level) I feel like the BTEC Extended is really good preparation for compsci with its combination of practical and theoretical content, if you want to do anything extra I would say take a level maths or use of maths, have you got any idea of where you want to go to?

Hi there, I'm gonna start Btec extended diploma in IT tomorrow and I would want to go to queen mary to study compsci there. I'm wondering is royal holloway better? Do you reccommend it over QM? Also what grades did you get? Thanks

Also, i got a C in GCSE maths and gonna retake it in november at my college. Will unis not accept me because i had to retake it or will they not notice? Thanks

Hi, I think it depends what you want in a university, RHUL and QMUL are 2 that always get compared, RHUL ranks higher in league tables but QMUL is a Russell group uni which appeals to some people, personally I loved the campus at RHUL and the course really appeals to me at RHUL, I got D*D*D* but my offer was DDD and I think that would be the offer for QMUL too, I would go to both their open days see which you prefer, the open day at RHUL sold it for me

Thanks for your answer one more question, is it hard to achieve a D*? I'm gonna try and aim for it. Did you get it with ease or did you actually have to WORK to get it?

Yeah it was a lot of work, you need a minimum of 15 D's and 3 M's for D*D*D*, for the distinction criteria none of it was taught, we were expected to research it, personally I put a lot more effort in then was required to achieve the criteria so that I had a firmer grasp on the subject, you will find unit 19 as one of the hardest if youre doing it, but it is really relevant and benifical to cover the content for compsci, good luck with the course

Where do you get the research from? Online and/or textbooks? Was it hard to find? It's gonna be my first BTEC so sorry for osunding persistent

Haha no worries, yeah online, the BTEC text books are okay but don't really go into enough detail in my opinion for the distinctions but they are okay for pass and merits, AS and A2 Computing books are quite good, also I just went to the library and look for books relating to the units that I was studying at the time, any more questions feel free to ask

How were the units like? I went on the enrolment and the teacher said you get to build computers and stuff. Is it true? Was it overall an enjoyable course? do you reccommend it over a levels? Thanks

You get to build a computer in unit 2,which is a compulsory unit but there is much more to the course then building computers, in my college we covered a lot of computing content which personally I enjoyed the most such as the programming units we learnt 2 different languages which was the same as computing a level like I mentioned earlier unit 19 'computer architecture' was a great unit to study and literally covers the whole of the second computing a level exam if you want to try to compare it like that, I personally would choose the BTEC over a levels unless one of your a levels is maths which opens up a few more uni options but you can still get into a great uni with the BTEC alone

Thank you I personally want to go to Queen Mary, Royal Holloway, Leicster or Kent which are pretty good unis, however i would need to resit my maths exam to get a B. Would unis know i resat and frown upon my application because of it?

I don't think so, I think they will just make it part of your offer to achieve a B, if anything you might be ahead of people who did the exams 2 years prior

Thanks for your help man! One last thing i promise do you get to chose the units you do? You said in your previous post that my BTEC needs to have a significant amount of computing in it. So do you get to choose the ones that more computing in it than the rest?