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What A levels do I need for criminology?

Hey, I was wondering what A levels should I study if I wanted to become a criminologist in the future? I know I should study either sociology or psychology or even both, but what else? Do I have to do Law at A level and should I have a science like biology?

thanks :smile:
OK so looking at the first 3 unis I could find that offered Criminology as an undergrad degree - English Literature seems to be one that comes up often, likely because Criminology is also an essay subject, and English Lit's known for being a lil' tough and good for those analytical skills. Psychology, like you said, would be good too... sciences don't seem to be necessary, but it might be of help? TBH as long as you have an essay subject in there apart from psychology you'll be fine, I think.
Reply 2
Original post by roarchika
OK so looking at the first 3 unis I could find that offered Criminology as an undergrad degree - English Literature seems to be one that comes up often, likely because Criminology is also an essay subject, and English Lit's known for being a lil' tough and good for those analytical skills. Psychology, like you said, would be good too... sciences don't seem to be necessary, but it might be of help? TBH as long as you have an essay subject in there apart from psychology you'll be fine, I think.


Thanks for the help! Do you think Law is necessary to study then?
No chance; not enough schools offer it for it to be a requirement! However, you might want to study Law at uni and then do your post-grad in Criminology? It's another path to consider, I suppose, since more unis - and more 'top' unis - offer Law. But at the same time slogging through three years just to do post-grad study is understandably maybe a bit much... so in the end, you should do you!
Reply 4
Original post by roarchika
No chance; not enough schools offer it for it to be a requirement! However, you might want to study Law at uni and then do your post-grad in Criminology? It's another path to consider, I suppose, since more unis - and more 'top' unis - offer Law. But at the same time slogging through three years just to do post-grad study is understandably maybe a bit much... so in the end, you should do you!


Okay cool, thank you :smile:
You'll need Psycholgy, specifically forensic psychology
Original post by monique44
Hey, I was wondering what A levels should I study if I wanted to become a criminologist in the future? I know I should study either sociology or psychology or even both, but what else? Do I have to do Law at A level and should I have a science like biology?

thanks :smile:


Sociology is very helpful for studying Criminology. I'm currently doing AQA Sociology and there is a Crime and Deviance unit that seems amazing. In OCR Psychology there is a unit on Forensic Psychology that I'm gonna absolutely love :biggrin: I would recommend doing both subjects as both have useful skills that you could take through to uni. It might also be useful to look at uni web pages (if that's the path you want to take) and see if they have any required subjects. A science could be useful but most unis include Psychology in the 'relevant science A2s' section so it's probably not necessarily. Doing other things eg. relevant work experience or an online criminology course would also help a lot on a uni application. I'm doing my Film coursework on the representation of crime in films which I have been told I can include in my Personal Statement and also completing an online course this summer. I want to do Psychology with Criminology at uni.

Hope this helps, and Good Luck! If you do end up doing Psychology or Sociology at A-Level PM me if you need help!
Reply 7
I had offers to study criminology at all 5 of my choices. Durham, Leeds, Lancaster, Southampton and Loughborough. I have firmed Durham and need grades of AAB.
At A Level I took Sociology, Law and English Language and Literature combined.
Sociology was really helpful as the research skills you learn are applicable completely in most BA Crim degrees, we also had a topic on crime and deviance that gave me really useful stuff to talk about in my personal statement.
I would take either sociology or psychology dependant on whether the criminology degree is BA/BSc. If it is a BA I would take sociology, if it is a BSc I would recommend psychology as it has more of a scientific stance and would be really helpful for a BSc degree that is science focused.
Taking law has helped a lot to give me a good background for my degree as a lot of the topics I will study are areas such as policing etc.
I also took english, this would be really helpful as a criminology degree is primarily essay focused and will give you great skills that you can apply to your degree writing.

I hope this helps :-)
Original post by roarchika
OK so looking at the first 3 unis I could find that offered Criminology as an undergrad degree - English Literature seems to be one that comes up often, likely because Criminology is also an essay subject, and English Lit's known for being a lil' tough and good for those analytical skills. Psychology, like you said, would be good too... sciences don't seem to be necessary, but it might be of help? TBH as long as you have an essay subject in there apart from psychology you'll be fine, I think.


This
Law, Psychology, Sociology.

Government and Politics would be good as you could go onto work at the Home Office or the Ministry of Justice of H.M. Government, then such knowledge would be really useful. The best graduate course for criminology is criminal justice policy at the London School of Economics for working in government or if you get to high role in the police force.

What are you thinking of becoming? Detective Inspector perhaps? I don't think you need to go to uni to get on to do that, just A-Levels.
If your sixth form/college offers Psychology then I think this would help. There are relevant areas that I have come across from studying it, and you also gain a bit of scientific background in terms of biology.
Original post by 08vihe
I had offers to study criminology at all 5 of my choices. Durham, Leeds, Lancaster, Southampton and Loughborough. I have firmed Durham and need grades of AAB.
At A Level I took Sociology, Law and English Language and Literature combined.
Sociology was really helpful as the research skills you learn are applicable completely in most BA Crim degrees, we also had a topic on crime and deviance that gave me really useful stuff to talk about in my personal statement.
I would take either sociology or psychology dependant on whether the criminology degree is BA/BSc. If it is a BA I would take sociology, if it is a BSc I would recommend psychology as it has more of a scientific stance and would be really helpful for a BSc degree that is science focused.
Taking law has helped a lot to give me a good background for my degree as a lot of the topics I will study are areas such as policing etc.
I also took english, this would be really helpful as a criminology degree is primarily essay focused and will give you great skills that you can apply to your degree writing.

I hope this helps :-)

heyyy, I take psychology, English language and history do u think that would work

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