Psychology or Environmental Studies

I'm taking A level course this september and I want to go for medicine or pharmacy or nursing. I'll study biology,chemistry,maths. I'm still wondering about the 4th subject. Should i take psychology or environmental studies?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

tryrevise

I'd go for psychology

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Reply 2

Scarlett2111

Original post by tryrevise

I'd go for psychology

Posted from TSR Mobile

Yeah,i think so too. But I heard that it's very hard for a new student to learn Psychology. Especially when back in my country, i've never learnt a basic thing abt it

Reply 3

Pectorac

Original post by Scarlett2111

Yeah,i think so too. But I heard that it's very hard for a new student to learn Psychology. Especially when back in my country, i've never learnt a basic thing abt it

In the UK 99.9% of people will never have learned a basic thing about psychology before taking it at A-level, just GCSE science.

Reply 4

chelseajanett

I'd done GCSE Psychology and I've just finished AS Psychology, whilst some of the topics are similar not all of them are and I think doing GCSE just put me at a disadvantage, because I was so sick of some of the topics because it was my third year doing them that I just didn't work... And with GCSE knowledge only (and not doing any work because I thought I already knew it all..), I got an E on a mock exam. So it's a slight advantage but it doesn't mean that much, it's similar to all subjects. I'm sure if I'd have done Sociology GCSE then I'd be better at the AS Level, but I didn't and I'm predicted an A* in Sociology A Level :redface:

It's just down to hard work, and psychology is so so so so so interesting!! Subjects are so much more enjoyable when they're so interesting :biggrin:

Reply 5

HappyHylian

Psychology, unless you want to end up at McDonalds.

Reply 6

Aardvark1998

Environmental Studies. It compliments Biology really well and there's quite a lot of crossover (at least there was with my exam board anyway), so you don't actually have to learn a huge amount of new content because a lot of it is covered in the Biology course. It's great because you look at the world holistically rather than just examining little sections, so it makes it a bit easier to get your head round the complicated biology stuff because you already know some background. I really loved the course, and it was very popular with people heading down similar routes to you.

This bit isn't meant to offend anyone, it's just my personal experience. Quite a few of the people I know who've taken Psychology tend to be people of lower academic ability who perhaps don't feel that they want the stress of subjects like Chemistry, Maths, Biology etc. I'm not saying it's a soft subject or that people who take it are stupid (they're definitely not, I've got some very clever friends who take it), but it doesn't really sit in line with the rest of your subjects. Environmental Studies is probably a better option because it gives you the background knowledge to tie all your Biology and Chemistry together and apply it to the real world.

Reply 7

HappyHylian

Original post by bad_moose

"There's quite a lot of crossover" is not a positive. Some unis don't accept Environmental Studies and Biology together because of how similar they are, just like they don't accept Biology and Human Biology together.
"It compliments Biology really well", sure, it does, but so does Psychology. (If you do the AQA Specification A version).
"Tend to be people of lower academic ability". Surely that's a postive too? The grade boundaries should be pretty low. It actually seems more like the person taking Biology AND Environmental Studies can't be bothered because they know that there's so much crossover that they won't have to learn as much.
And remember.. it's called 'Environmental STUDIES'. Anything with studies on the end is not respected.

Reply 8

Aardvark1998

Original post by HappyHylian

Some unis don't accept Psychology and Maths together, you're going to encounter this kind of issue with all kinds of different subject combinations.

Nothing on the Pyschology course that my college offers comes up on the Biology course that my college offers in any kind of detail. I guess this bit is very dependent on exam boards.

I'm really not convinced that consistently low grade boundaries are a good thing, any good Uni is going to be aware of this and react accordingly. I guess you could interpet it as having a 'can't be bothered' attitude, but I feel that there's more to be gained by showing Unis that you've got a good overall understanding of your subject area than there is to be gained from waving around an A grade in a subject that has relatively few links to the rest of your courses and is known for having low boundaries.

Yeah I can see that, but it's an extra A level that we're talking about here, not a core one. Like I said before, I think it's better to take something with a high level of relevance to your other subjects. Environmental Studies is better in this respect, in my opinion.

I'm not convinced we'll ever see eye to eye on this, I think we both have quite strong opinions on the matter. :colondollar:

OP; both subjects are worth having, you've got 3 other well respected A levels to get you into Uni. If you do well in Pyschology or Enviro, you've still got a good shot at getting to where you want to be.

Reply 9

HappyHylian

Original post by bad_moose

Nothing on the Pyschology course that my college offers comes up on the Biology course that my college offers in any kind of detail

OP: If where you're going doesn't offer AQA Spec A Psychology, don't bother doing Psychology. Go with Environmental Studies..

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 10

Aardvark1998

Original post by HappyHylian

OP: If where you're going doesn't offer AQA Spec A Psychology, don't bother doing Psychology. Go with Environmental Studies..

Yeah I don't think that those questions are from the Psychology course that my college offers. Otherwise you'd be completely right, because there are several concepts in those questions that I had to learn for Biology. It's completely dependent on whether the exam boards for each subject complement eachother I guess, no idea which ones the OP does though.