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A Level Psychology

I'm thinking of switching from English Literature to Psychology. I'm a couple weeks into a level and we need to decide by this Friday if we want to drop/change any of our subjects. I'm not enjoying English nearly as much as I thought I would, but I was just wondering what any Psychology students think of the subject - how difficult is it, how interesting is it etc. Alongside psych, I'd be studying French and History, as well as doing an EPQ.
Any comments/advice are really appreciated :smile:

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by xldrxo

I did both Lit and Psychology for AS. Personally I have more interest in psychology than lit, but that's me.

Psychology doesn't really go into the theory debates but instead focuses more on research methods, which I found a bit dry to say the least.

In terms of difficulty, I find psychology easier because I am not much of a guy with essays; I'm better with science and maths (not that psychology has any maths above GCSE level of difficulty). Psychology is considered an essay based subject though.
There isn't nearly as much reading as there is in lit for psychology though, so I find it significantly more manageable.

Personally, I consider Lit a better match for your other subjects (which I guess is partly why you chose it). However, if you're not enjoying it and you see yourself liking psychology better (as well as more likely getting higher grades), then I would go with psychology.

Not that it's going to be a big factor considering your A Level options, but what do you intend to do in your degree?

Reply 2

Kizksakura

Hey Man. I am also in Yr12, doing slightly different subjects compared to yours. However considering your choices it is very likely that you will be resulted into something literature related or humanity related courses in university. In that case then English although will be more pressured but will definitely be more helpful when it comes to applications, because it is a more related subject that you don't have to talk bs in your personal statement to say why it was useful etc.

Also Psychology is not much better in terms of pressure, my older brother in US who is doing a master degree with scholarship in PSU right now did Psychology for his AP, it didn't turn out to be great because he was studying medicine and although Psychology have some overlap with effect of chemicals on people and importance of neural therapy, it really did not boost him into Great universities like Stanford. (Basically in Psychology is a mix in Science to explain why and how actions happen; Philosophy of should we take some actions to stimulate other people's emotion and History like essay writing where you have to reason stuff.