Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Uni. Students: How did you pick your choices, and where do you study now?

Hey people.

Please can you do me a favour, it'd help me quite a lot if you could answer the questions above since I need to pick my choices quite soon and there are a few things that I'm not sure about.. but with this question I think I'll know more.

Thank you!

Reply 1

Firefly13

When I started my A Levels I wanted to do Medicine. After a few weeks I realised I really hated human biology and I found the other aspects more interesting, which helped me chose Biology as my subject choice (along with the fact it was my best subject and I found it really easy).

After that I had a look at the subject league tables (I know they don't really mean anything, but I thought it was a good place to start). After that I made a list of the ones I believed I could get the grades for (without going too far below what I expected to get. I thought I would get AAB/AAA, so I didn't bother looking at courses that asked for BBC, for example). I decided pretty early on I really wanted to get away from where I grew up so I took out any universities that were nearby, or any that I didn't like the area they were in.

Then I started looking at the courses and universities to see what I liked the look of. Until this point I was going to apply to Oxford because my dad went there and my school was pushing me into doing it, but after having a look at the course I realised that it wasn't right for me so I didn't apply. It's important to think about where you would be happy, not what sounds the best! I also looked at what courses offered a year in industry because that was something I was interested in at the time.

I ended up choosing Bath, Nottingham (for Biology and Microbiology - I ended up turning down both offers so sorry Nottingham!), Southampton (my insurance) and Imperial (my firm). I went on open days for all of them and I found that really helped me find where I felt most comfortable. If you have time then I think it's a good idea to go on an open day before you apply.

I'm just going into my final year at Imperial now and I'm really happy I chose it as my firm.
Hope this helps! Good luck with your choices :smile: