A-level options
Hi, I'm currently struggling with my options for A-levels. My school requires us to pick four, and I'm decided on Maths and Physics at the moment. I'd like to base the rest off what I plan to go into, but at the moment I can't make my mind up. The three main areas I'm thinking about are computer science (software development), engineering, and medicine (psychiatry). There's also law and finance as back-up plans but you don't really need any specific A-levels for those.
At the moment, I'm taking 11 GCSEs:
Maths, Further Maths, Eng Lang, Eng Lit, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Spanish, History, RS, and CompSci.
To start off with, I think I'm just competent enough to shoot for Oxbridge. This would mean that, for Computer Science, I would need to take Further Maths. I'm predicted a 9 in both GCSE Maths and FM, but I find FM quite tricky at times and I'm not sure if I would be able to get higher than a B at A-level. I like doing maths that we already know, but don't really enjoy learning new stuff, or like the process of learning new stuff.
For engineering, I've been told I don't need more than Maths and Physics, but Further Maths A-level would help. For medicine, I need Chemistry at the very least, and my biology teacher said Biology is almost essential as well. This means I wouldn't be able to do Further Maths if I was really aiming to go into medicine. I like GCSE Biology but find Chemistry a bit boring and the A-level syllabus seems bad.
Apart from that, I'd love to do History as I like history so much, but it's not really facilitating. If I could, I would also do Economics, but that's even less facilitating, and I'm not 100 per cent sure I would enjoy it, considering I haven't done it before.
Overall, that's five possible subjects (FM, Chemistry, Biology, History, and Economics) to fill two slots! I really have no idea how to pick which ones I should take. I'm planning to do a bit of medical work experience so I can figure out if I like it or not, but by the time that starts my school might not let me change my options. Is there any advice you guys can provide? Should I prioritise the ones I think I'd enjoy more over the more facilitating ones? Are there any good ways for me to pick a career to aim for?
At the moment, I'm taking 11 GCSEs:
Maths, Further Maths, Eng Lang, Eng Lit, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Spanish, History, RS, and CompSci.
To start off with, I think I'm just competent enough to shoot for Oxbridge. This would mean that, for Computer Science, I would need to take Further Maths. I'm predicted a 9 in both GCSE Maths and FM, but I find FM quite tricky at times and I'm not sure if I would be able to get higher than a B at A-level. I like doing maths that we already know, but don't really enjoy learning new stuff, or like the process of learning new stuff.
For engineering, I've been told I don't need more than Maths and Physics, but Further Maths A-level would help. For medicine, I need Chemistry at the very least, and my biology teacher said Biology is almost essential as well. This means I wouldn't be able to do Further Maths if I was really aiming to go into medicine. I like GCSE Biology but find Chemistry a bit boring and the A-level syllabus seems bad.
Apart from that, I'd love to do History as I like history so much, but it's not really facilitating. If I could, I would also do Economics, but that's even less facilitating, and I'm not 100 per cent sure I would enjoy it, considering I haven't done it before.
Overall, that's five possible subjects (FM, Chemistry, Biology, History, and Economics) to fill two slots! I really have no idea how to pick which ones I should take. I'm planning to do a bit of medical work experience so I can figure out if I like it or not, but by the time that starts my school might not let me change my options. Is there any advice you guys can provide? Should I prioritise the ones I think I'd enjoy more over the more facilitating ones? Are there any good ways for me to pick a career to aim for?
Original post by Apollo07
Hi, I'm currently struggling with my options for A-levels. My school requires us to pick four, and I'm decided on Maths and Physics at the moment. I'd like to base the rest off what I plan to go into, but at the moment I can't make my mind up. The three main areas I'm thinking about are computer science (software development), engineering, and medicine (psychiatry). There's also law and finance as back-up plans but you don't really need any specific A-levels for those.
At the moment, I'm taking 11 GCSEs:
Maths, Further Maths, Eng Lang, Eng Lit, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Spanish, History, RS, and CompSci.
To start off with, I think I'm just competent enough to shoot for Oxbridge. This would mean that, for Computer Science, I would need to take Further Maths. I'm predicted a 9 in both GCSE Maths and FM, but I find FM quite tricky at times and I'm not sure if I would be able to get higher than a B at A-level. I like doing maths that we already know, but don't really enjoy learning new stuff, or like the process of learning new stuff.
For engineering, I've been told I don't need more than Maths and Physics, but Further Maths A-level would help. For medicine, I need Chemistry at the very least, and my biology teacher said Biology is almost essential as well. This means I wouldn't be able to do Further Maths if I was really aiming to go into medicine. I like GCSE Biology but find Chemistry a bit boring and the A-level syllabus seems bad.
Apart from that, I'd love to do History as I like history so much, but it's not really facilitating. If I could, I would also do Economics, but that's even less facilitating, and I'm not 100 per cent sure I would enjoy it, considering I haven't done it before.
Overall, that's five possible subjects (FM, Chemistry, Biology, History, and Economics) to fill two slots! I really have no idea how to pick which ones I should take. I'm planning to do a bit of medical work experience so I can figure out if I like it or not, but by the time that starts my school might not let me change my options. Is there any advice you guys can provide? Should I prioritise the ones I think I'd enjoy more over the more facilitating ones? Are there any good ways for me to pick a career to aim for?
At the moment, I'm taking 11 GCSEs:
Maths, Further Maths, Eng Lang, Eng Lit, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Spanish, History, RS, and CompSci.
To start off with, I think I'm just competent enough to shoot for Oxbridge. This would mean that, for Computer Science, I would need to take Further Maths. I'm predicted a 9 in both GCSE Maths and FM, but I find FM quite tricky at times and I'm not sure if I would be able to get higher than a B at A-level. I like doing maths that we already know, but don't really enjoy learning new stuff, or like the process of learning new stuff.
For engineering, I've been told I don't need more than Maths and Physics, but Further Maths A-level would help. For medicine, I need Chemistry at the very least, and my biology teacher said Biology is almost essential as well. This means I wouldn't be able to do Further Maths if I was really aiming to go into medicine. I like GCSE Biology but find Chemistry a bit boring and the A-level syllabus seems bad.
Apart from that, I'd love to do History as I like history so much, but it's not really facilitating. If I could, I would also do Economics, but that's even less facilitating, and I'm not 100 per cent sure I would enjoy it, considering I haven't done it before.
Overall, that's five possible subjects (FM, Chemistry, Biology, History, and Economics) to fill two slots! I really have no idea how to pick which ones I should take. I'm planning to do a bit of medical work experience so I can figure out if I like it or not, but by the time that starts my school might not let me change my options. Is there any advice you guys can provide? Should I prioritise the ones I think I'd enjoy more over the more facilitating ones? Are there any good ways for me to pick a career to aim for?
What a tough decision you have on your hands!
Unfortunately yes, for medicine I believe you need Biology and Chemistry but for Mechanical Engineering you usually need Physics.
So I guess there’s the option to study maths, physics, biology, and chemistry. However, they are all very tough subjects with a lot of content. I always tell people to choose what they enjoy, which usually helps them get higher grades.
It does really help if you have a good idea of what you want to study at university because then you can just aim for that. But if you are unsure, it makes it really difficult to choose! In fact most people at your age don’t know what they want to do for their career, so often they go with what they enjoy.
There are also things to consider such as what teachers will be teaching those subjects; for some people the teacher really makes a difference whereas for others it doesn't really affect their choice.
Definitely talk to your teachers and family about it. Often, discussing things can help you to make sense of things.
I wish you all the best!
Anastasia,
BCU Student Rep.
So your "options" are just the jobs all teenagers are aware of that they think make lots of money? That's not exactly imaginative.
In any event you can easily keep all those options open by doing A-level Maths/Physics/Chemistry +/- Further Maths. This would meet the requirements for any engineering or CS course, any finance/management/economics/etc course, any law degree (which has no requirements) and most medical schools (only about 1/3 require A-level Biology).
In any event you can easily keep all those options open by doing A-level Maths/Physics/Chemistry +/- Further Maths. This would meet the requirements for any engineering or CS course, any finance/management/economics/etc course, any law degree (which has no requirements) and most medical schools (only about 1/3 require A-level Biology).
Original post by BCU Student Rep
Hi @Apollo07
What a tough decision you have on your hands!
Unfortunately yes, for medicine I believe you need Biology and Chemistry but for Mechanical Engineering you usually need Physics.
So I guess there’s the option to study maths, physics, biology, and chemistry. However, they are all very tough subjects with a lot of content. I always tell people to choose what they enjoy, which usually helps them get higher grades.
It does really help if you have a good idea of what you want to study at university because then you can just aim for that. But if you are unsure, it makes it really difficult to choose! In fact most people at your age don’t know what they want to do for their career, so often they go with what they enjoy.
There are also things to consider such as what teachers will be teaching those subjects; for some people the teacher really makes a difference whereas for others it doesn't really affect their choice.
Definitely talk to your teachers and family about it. Often, discussing things can help you to make sense of things.
I wish you all the best!
Anastasia,
BCU Student Rep.
What a tough decision you have on your hands!
Unfortunately yes, for medicine I believe you need Biology and Chemistry but for Mechanical Engineering you usually need Physics.
So I guess there’s the option to study maths, physics, biology, and chemistry. However, they are all very tough subjects with a lot of content. I always tell people to choose what they enjoy, which usually helps them get higher grades.
It does really help if you have a good idea of what you want to study at university because then you can just aim for that. But if you are unsure, it makes it really difficult to choose! In fact most people at your age don’t know what they want to do for their career, so often they go with what they enjoy.
There are also things to consider such as what teachers will be teaching those subjects; for some people the teacher really makes a difference whereas for others it doesn't really affect their choice.
Definitely talk to your teachers and family about it. Often, discussing things can help you to make sense of things.
I wish you all the best!
Anastasia,
BCU Student Rep.
Original post by artful_lounger
So your "options" are just the jobs all teenagers are aware of that they think make lots of money? That's not exactly imaginative.
In any event you can easily keep all those options open by doing A-level Maths/Physics/Chemistry +/- Further Maths. This would meet the requirements for any engineering or CS course, any finance/management/economics/etc course, any law degree (which has no requirements) and most medical schools (only about 1/3 require A-level Biology).
In any event you can easily keep all those options open by doing A-level Maths/Physics/Chemistry +/- Further Maths. This would meet the requirements for any engineering or CS course, any finance/management/economics/etc course, any law degree (which has no requirements) and most medical schools (only about 1/3 require A-level Biology).
I'm aware I can keep all of my options open (on paper--how well would I actually do at a medical school without A-level biological knowledge?) with the combination you've listed, but I worry that I might not be able to do FM to a high enough grade and that I might not enjoy Chemistry. I'd also like to do other A-levels but these aren't facilitating. I should've phrased it better; my main question was about what I should prioritise, the more facilitating ones or the ones I'd probably do better on and enjoy more.
Original post by Apollo07
Thanks for responding, I'm aware it seems like that but I genuinely have an interest in these areas. For CompSci, I'm really more interested in game development, but with how oversaturated the market is at the moment, I thought it'd be best if I thought about other subareas within CompSci as a whole. For engineering, I've always been interested in aerospace engineering, and for psychiatry, my own experience of mental illness and what I've seen from and read about others has really motivated me to learn more about and try to help people suffering from mental illness. And yes, finance and law are my back-up plans simply because they are so vague in terms of qualifications but are also quite lucrative.
I'm aware I can keep all of my options open (on paper--how well would I actually do at a medical school without A-level biological knowledge?) with the combination you've listed, but I worry that I might not be able to do FM to a high enough grade and that I might not enjoy Chemistry. I'd also like to do other A-levels but these aren't facilitating. I should've phrased it better; my main question was about what I should prioritise, the more facilitating ones or the ones I'd probably do better on and enjoy more.
I'm aware I can keep all of my options open (on paper--how well would I actually do at a medical school without A-level biological knowledge?) with the combination you've listed, but I worry that I might not be able to do FM to a high enough grade and that I might not enjoy Chemistry. I'd also like to do other A-levels but these aren't facilitating. I should've phrased it better; my main question was about what I should prioritise, the more facilitating ones or the ones I'd probably do better on and enjoy more.
The concept of facilitating subjects no longer exists. The RG who originated it retired it quite a few years ago due to misconceptions such as these that they are somehow "supersubjects" that applicants should take. All they were, were subjects that served as prerequisites for one or more degree programmes.
Medicine is a very broad field and osycbiatry is just one area if it. You would need to study the whole of medicine for 5-6 years then work across the whole of medicine for 2 years before you can begin psychiatry specialty training. If you have no interest in the rest of it then that's probably not a strong indicator.
Also while person experience can be a motivator you do need to be committed to treating others - caring for someone who you don't know and have never met with acute psychiatric (or medical) concerns os a different thing entirely. However this is part of why work experience in a caring environment is required for medicine.
Regarding biology, if they don't require it then they will just teach it from scratch. Newcastle stopped requiring ANY specific subjects as they found in the GEM course graduates even from humanities degrees had no issue quickly catching up to graduates from biomedical science degrees. If even they can catch up for the accelerated course, getting everyone up to speed for the topics from A-level biology is presumably trivial.
If you don't really enjoy FM though, do you think you'll actually enjoy a degree in CS ir engineering? CS is not a degree in coding and is necessarily mathematical. And engjneering will require you learn and use concepts from FM day in and day out.
Not taking chemistry would be a major limitation fir applying to medical school - not all medical schools require it. But about half do. You massively limit hour options without it (much more than not taking biology).
I'd note incidentally that research has shown that STEM and non-STEM graduates have equivalent salary outcomes within 10 years of graduation in the UK. So if you don't actually like those subject areas, don't force yourself into a STEM degree by convincing yourself you will have a better job at the end - as you won't.
How do facilitating subjects not exist when lots of courses still require certain subjects though? Like for medical schools, Chemistry and (sometimes) Biology are facilitating, and for degrees in maths, economics, or engineering, Maths and FM are facilitating. I understand some unis, like Newcastle, have dropped required subjects, but most still require at least some.
That's a very good point about perhaps not enjoying the whole training experience that you need to become a specialist like a psychiatrist, and yeah, that's why I'm trying to do some work experience, to figure out if I can care for random strangers (if that makes sense). It's also reassuring that at uni, they'll teach anything not required and that people catch up quite fast.
For my enjoyment of FM, it's kinda complicated. It's not that I dislike doing and using FM, just that I've disliked learning it in Year 10 and 11. For what degree I end up choosing, I think I just need to decide whether the sacrifice of doing something I might not like very much for several semesters or even years is worth getting to the things that I would really like to do, but I'll look more into that when the time comes.
I searched for some research about the salary outcomes of graduates and I couldn't really find anything that said they were equivalent. This government report said, 'Studying a qualification in both higher education (HE) or further education (FE) is associated with positive earnings returns ... there is a lot of variation in value-add across subjects, with science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) subjects as well as economics and law generally being associated with higher earnings', and the only 10-year report I found, this American research, seems to suggest that as long as STEM graduates have a career related to their degree, they outperform non-STEM graduates. I'd always tend to pick more STEM subjects anyway, because those seem to be valued more. (At the very least, they are promoted way more than SHAPE subjects.)
I think, depending on my medic work experience, I'll probably take Maths, FM, Physics, and History, or Maths, FM, Physics, and Chemistry. If I'm not enjoying or coping with FM throughout Michaelmas term, I might be able to beg to switch to a different subject, like Economics. Thanks a lot for your very good advice!
That's a very good point about perhaps not enjoying the whole training experience that you need to become a specialist like a psychiatrist, and yeah, that's why I'm trying to do some work experience, to figure out if I can care for random strangers (if that makes sense). It's also reassuring that at uni, they'll teach anything not required and that people catch up quite fast.
For my enjoyment of FM, it's kinda complicated. It's not that I dislike doing and using FM, just that I've disliked learning it in Year 10 and 11. For what degree I end up choosing, I think I just need to decide whether the sacrifice of doing something I might not like very much for several semesters or even years is worth getting to the things that I would really like to do, but I'll look more into that when the time comes.
I searched for some research about the salary outcomes of graduates and I couldn't really find anything that said they were equivalent. This government report said, 'Studying a qualification in both higher education (HE) or further education (FE) is associated with positive earnings returns ... there is a lot of variation in value-add across subjects, with science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) subjects as well as economics and law generally being associated with higher earnings', and the only 10-year report I found, this American research, seems to suggest that as long as STEM graduates have a career related to their degree, they outperform non-STEM graduates. I'd always tend to pick more STEM subjects anyway, because those seem to be valued more. (At the very least, they are promoted way more than SHAPE subjects.)
I think, depending on my medic work experience, I'll probably take Maths, FM, Physics, and History, or Maths, FM, Physics, and Chemistry. If I'm not enjoying or coping with FM throughout Michaelmas term, I might be able to beg to switch to a different subject, like Economics. Thanks a lot for your very good advice!
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