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A level Computing hard or soft?

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Generally use this for reference:

http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=604

(Computing is listed in the lowest catagory, "A-levels Suitable Only As Fourth Subjects")

Reply 41

patra

Hiya! I am an A2 student studying Economics, Maths, Further Maths and Computing. Generally depending on what universities they consider it a hard subject. I would say the coursework is generally alright, depending on how much help support you get as well as how quickly you can pick up the coding side. I would however say that the exam will need quite a bit of prep., also depends on the exam board, however my college prepared us really well with lots of revision classes etc. I would recommend that you take either maths or some sort of maths as it will help you with the economics and the computing side, and would be very beneficial! :smile:

Hope this helped...! Good Luck! :smile:

xxx

Reply 42

ofmiceandchloe

Original post by Stardust Mirage

I think unis neither consider it as soft of hard just in the middle I think. If your doing CompSci it's worth having at A level. if you don't have A Level maths you would struggle. I'm not a maths person neither do I like maths but I'm still doing maths in college just for the sake of me being able to do a CompSci course in uni in the future.

What other A Levels did you take?

Reply 43

Damask-

I took maths, further maths and computing at A2 (and applied to Birmingham though I didn't end up there) and I'm half and half between agreeing that further maths is more useful than computing. Computing is great for easing the transition to uni as you already know a lot of the first year stuff and there's less to worry about, but it just means the jump to second year will be harder in comparison. Further maths has immediately been useful for maths modules and there's no doubt that the kind of mind set it gets you into is crucial for the logic and programming aspects of the degree too, but not all of it has been useful (whereas all of computing has. This is coming from someone who did FP1-3, M1-2, S1-3.)

Reply 44

Damask-

Original post by alwaysme

First of all, doing computing doesn't increase your chances at getting into computer science anywhere near as much as you'd think it would. There is very little overlap in material between Computing and Computer Science.

Computing is about using a computers software and understanding how it affects society and business. Computer science is about breaking down problems into atomic operations and representing them in the paradigms of a programming language. You'll be studying algorithms, learning programming languages and a TON of maths.

Some universities (Not Birmingham though) even go as far as specifying Computing as a weak subject for Computer Science, Cambridge is one that comes to mind.

Maths is by far the strongest subject if you wish to get onto a Computer Science course at a top university.

The first part of this is BS, you're confusing computing with IT. There is basically a 100% overlap between A-Level computing and degree CompSci.

Reply 45

sagederby

In my experience, students who don't at least AS maths or science such as physics tend to struggle with A-level Computing, particularly in the A2 Year.
The Maths type topics on AS are logic and Boolean algebra, number conversions, binary arithmetic, sorting algorithms ( on decision maths papers as well)
On A2: binary search algorithms, graph theory - both on decision maths papers as well.

If you are planning on doing business and accounting I would stick to doing ICT A-level as it goes better with those subjects. If you want to do Computer Science at uni, it helps to have done a combination of STEM subjects.

Reply 46

sagederby

Original post by Robinjh

Generally use this for reference:

http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=604

(Computing is listed in the lowest catagory, "A-levels Suitable Only As Fourth Subjects")

Depends on what you are applying to do and what college. I have students who have gone to Cambridge, and not just to do computer science, with 3 a-levels including computing. I.e. Computing was not their fourth subject.