Changing Biology to Psychology?

I've now had all four of my subjects (English lit, history, politics and biology) but, after 3 lessons, I'm not enjoying biology at all. I've been finding it really boring, confusing at times and I'm getting distracted and looking at the time constantly. I was thinking of changing it to psychology but I've been quite worried for two main reasons:

1) It's not really a science in the same sense as chemistry, biology and physics so I'm worried not having any normal sciences/maths-based subjects will be a big problem when I start looking at universities.

2) I've heard a lot about the pass rate being very low and there also being a lot of case studies. At GCSE I took geography but hated the case studies and struggled a lot with them.

I was hoping someone who took psychology would be able to respond to both my worries and say what it's like. The course does interest me, but I'm just quite nervous about changing my only mathematical-ish subject to one that universities don't care about and to a subject I might find very hard.

Trust me, to say Universities don't care about Psychology is not true! I made this SAME mistake two years ago and picked History instead of Psychology and still regret it to this day. I'm actually off to study Psych in Uni so I'm happy but I know people who took both Bio and Psych and got A*s in Psychology and Cs in Biology. I took Biology also and honestly regret it because it just brought down the rest of the results as the exam was possible honestly, if you're hating it now already, GET OUT QUICK haha! You should be fine with Psychology as long as you're good at essays and understand the format, and if you're good at learning case studies and research methods.

Good Luck

I've now had all four of my subjects (English lit, history, politics and biology) but, after 3 lessons, I'm not enjoying biology at all. I've been finding it really boring, confusing at times and I'm getting distracted and looking at the time constantly. I was thinking of changing it to psychology but I've been quite worried for two main reasons:

1) It's not really a science in the same sense as chemistry, biology and physics so I'm worried not having any normal sciences/maths-based subjects will be a big problem when I start looking at universities.

2) I've heard a lot about the pass rate being very low and there also being a lot of case studies. At GCSE I took geography but hated the case studies and struggled a lot with them.

I was hoping someone who took psychology would be able to respond to both my worries and say what it's like. The course does interest me, but I'm just quite nervous about changing my only mathematical-ish subject to one that universities don't care about and to a subject I might find very hard.

Trust me, if you don't enjoy it you'll find it hard and probably end up with a bad grade. And most universities will class Psychology as a 'relevant science A2' subject. As someone who has taken both Biology and Psychology I can tell you 100% that I enjoyed Psychology far more, and I got a B! Universities do value Psychology as well, even though it is a popular subject, it is also quite hard.

Do you know which exam board you'd be doing?
Good Luck!

I think it's OCR.

Yeah, I did AS OCR. There are case studies but the layout of them is very simple and the exam questions are normally quite straightforward

Oh, great! As one last question, roughly speaking, how many did you need to know?

I had to learn 15 for AS, spread equally across 5 approaches. We had an exam on Research Methods and a Core Studies exam.

I did geography GCSE, and just going on to do psychology (AQA) and biology (Edexcel) A2.
They are really quite different in terms of how they are assessed, biology is more reading the content and applying it to different situations and psychology is more like regurgitating the textbook.

Your right when it comes to psychology having a ton of experiments to learn, i would say about 40 across AS from my experience, but it is just a memory game, if you can memorise them all then its just putting pen to paper and copying them out in the exam,no thought needed, thats why i found psychology easier and tends to trend in higher grades.

Biology however is without a doubt more respectable, as it is a science and up there with math, chemistry and physics....and opens alot more doors when it comes to university courses, but it depends on if you have decided what you would like to study, if so and your course doesnt require a science and your absolutely sure its what you want to do, i wouldnt put yourself through the pressure. However if your uncertain, carrying on without a science, and then changing your career choice, it will eventually limit what you can apply for.


Hope that all made sense,lol

That's not too much then. I was thinking there were a lot more, haha.

That's not too much then. I was thinking there were a lot more, haha.

I've just done OCR AS Psychology, and really enjoyed it! There was quite a lot to learn - 15 case studies, but the way to nail the exam is to get the question structure down. In doing this, the knowledge for the case studies comes naturally after a while, so it doesn't seem like there's loads to learn. I haven't got the best of memories and I managed to get an A!

A2 however, is slightly more terrifying. There's 72 case studies to learn, although admittedly in less detail than the AS ones.

I also did biology and hated it throughout! I found in boring to begin with, but took it because I thought I needed a science subject. In hindsight, I wish I'd taken something else that I would have enjoyed, and gotten a better grade one.

My advice would be to take psychology, if you're not enjoying biology now. 😀




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