Should i choose gcse history

Hi everyone
I'm looking to do a pharmacy degree in uni and am going to be choosing my gcse options soon. I was thinking to choose History; does anyone have any advice/past experiences on how GCSE history was for them as i'm not really sure whether i should choose it or not. The exam board will be AQA.

Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

LittleIrishGeek

15

Hey, I personally didn't study history for GCSE (I've just finished my first year) because it didn't fit in with the table of options we had. However, I've heard people talking about it and seen people revising, and it's very detailed. Although, if you're good at learning lots of facts and figures and remembering sequences of events and things like that, you'll be fine! Good luck with your GCSE's😊x

Reply 2

vlb206

9

I did history GCSE and honestly it was my favourite subject :smile:

Doesn't really affect your uni choice in all honesty (I do biochemistry now).

Reply 3

chica3005

8

Its a lot of work (more content than other subjects I found) but I did enjoy it. Its a good subject to have studied so if you can commit then yeah defo

Reply 4

Dejomony

14

Be prepared for a arching hand and essays under exam conditions!

Reply 5

beesbebuzzing

13

GCSE History is only good if you enjoy the subject as it is hard work and dedication. You've got to be focused and prepared to write essays and know the content. GCSE History is an enjoyable subject though, just work hard all the time and be ready. No slacking tbh

Reply 6

Chronoscope

Volunteer Section Leader

21

Original post by topaz_

Hi everyone
I'm looking to do a pharmacy degree in uni and am going to be choosing my gcse options soon. I was thinking to choose History; does anyone have any advice/past experiences on how GCSE history was for them as i'm not really sure whether i should choose it or not. The exam board will be AQA.

Thanks :smile:

heya,

I did gcse history - I found it a very interesting subject and was one of my favourite academic subjects I managed to get a C which is what I was predicted - i wanted to do it for a level but I needed a B. It did help me with my essay writing and structure although I did find the essay structure difficult and slightly hard to grasp. and helped fill in gaps which gcse English Literature didn't. History gcse essay structure also helped everyone in our class with PEE and PEEL structure of essays, and timing in the exam, because you have to write accurately and keep on track of time.

It was certainly done in quite a bit of detail, so there's quite a bit of info to learn, as well as the mark scheme, because unless you know the mark scheme and write the answer to the question in a certain way you won't get the marks.

There's also a chunk of coursework (either 40% or 25% can't remember) - this may be different for the new GCSE's, i did gcse history (2015) on the OCR board, we had to do an essay out of 50 marks on the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, fairly boring but it was the section I got the highest mark in (47/50 = A*),

I'm guessing if you want to do pharmacy you're going to have more stem type gcse subjects, so having history in your mix of subjects will help balance them out, I'd recommend English Literature too.

I found history by far the most interesting subject, generally because we got to study different periods in time - we did the Romans and WW2 (people wanted to more of Hitler but it wasn't on the specification). Again the teacher may choose what your studying so it fits the specification so it may be worth a look if its been released.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 7

jwhittaker2

Original post by topaz_

Hi everyone
I'm looking to do a pharmacy degree in uni and am going to be choosing my gcse options soon. I was thinking to choose History; does anyone have any advice/past experiences on how GCSE history was for them as i'm not really sure whether i should choose it or not. The exam board will be AQA.

Thanks :smile:

Only if you are not prepared to do lots of essay writing

Reply 8

woooooo

10

Original post by topaz_

Hi everyone
I'm looking to do a pharmacy degree in uni and am going to be choosing my gcse options soon. I was thinking to choose History; does anyone have any advice/past experiences on how GCSE history was for them as i'm not really sure whether i should choose it or not. The exam board will be AQA.

Thanks :smile:

i do history and still am doing history.. the issue is the exam boards are changing the material learnt next year. what this simply means is that what we learnt you might not learn for example we learnt about Hitler's Germany... you might end up learning about the cold war 2 very different topics. so i cant encourage or discourage from history. plus there is coursework(ugh) but overall personally i enjoy it and and doing it for my A levels hope this helps

Reply 9

Sardonic Zarah

7

Linking in with the pharmacy degree you want to do in the future, some schools do Medicine through time and Surgery through time in History.

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