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I can't decide what courses to apply for... Help?

So I've just done Maths, Physics, Chemistry and History AS, and intend on carrying on the first three of those to A2, but I still can't decide what courses to apply for.
I'm considering Natural Sciences as it gives me a broad range of Science, so I can go for the specific areas that I find interesting, but I'm not sure how useful the degrees are; I've also considered doing Chemistry, as this is the single science that I find most interesting, but I also want to continue in other areas, I'm also considering Chemical Engineering, but I'm not super into practical work, so I'm not sure whether that would be a good choice/ how much of Chemical Engineering is actually carrying out practical work yourself; and finally I am considering Maths with Computer Science, as I am most naturally talented at Maths, and find both Computers and Programming interesting (but don't have very much experience with programming except some self-taught HTML and CSS).
So, does anyone who went through any similar confusion have any ideas/ advice?
Reply 1
Well to address a few things:
- natural science is broad, and offers flexibility, it's very good if you don't know what you want to do. In what you might miss out by not doing 100% of one subject, you'll gain in having a broader scientific knowledge. There's lots of jobs in the chemical industry for instance that have next to no relevance to the undergraduate degree (i.e. polymer industry is huge, but most people will do very little on polymers, perhaps unless they end up in a polymer research group in their last year).

That said, a chemistry degree itself is broad, so add the range of combinations out of a natural sciences degree to that and i'm unsure what routes it keeps open and which it doesn't. The course has a decent reputation though so I wouldn't necessarily worry. Given the institutions that offer the degree I think you'll be in a fine position. I would have a look how much lab work you get in the course, and directly compare how much of what area is covered (i.e. physical chemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry). Lab work is what you're paying for in the degree, in my opinion. You can't do that on your own, but you can study from a textbook all you like. It's also the most engaging part of the degree.

What do you mean by continuing into other areas? What sort of areas?

ChemEng - it's more engineering, with some chemistry thrown in. Basically more involved in the scaling up and manufacture process. At my current job I actually think the chemical engineers spend more time at their desks organising things, optimising processes and looking at theoretical approaches, rather than doing lab work. It depends on the job, I don't know too much about it myself, so have a google around and get a feel for it. There's a few threads around here on the engineering forums that will probably give you some insight from current/previous students.

Maths and CompSci - I guess it's just if you like programming and want to go into IT/development. I know a couple of people who did it and they enjoyed it, but it wasn't a difficult decision for them. I would say though, personally, it strikes me as an industry (programming-wise) that you can access by learning the skills yourself and demonstrating it. A degree is the easiest way to do it all but I guess if you're not convinced it's for you then eh...
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 2
By other areas I meant continuing in maths, and,to,a lesser extent physics, and possibly taking up a language, but if Natural Science is generally a fairly well valued degree, then that's probably what I'll apply for, thanks!
Reply 3
Original post by Ciaron
By other areas I meant continuing in maths, and,to,a lesser extent physics, and possibly taking up a language, but if Natural Science is generally a fairly well valued degree, then that's probably what I'll apply for, thanks!


I think it sounds good for you then! Good luck.

Regarding maths - again, no expert here, but science courses will be using maths you're familiar with, i.e. the application of it. Maths degree courses are quite different I believe.

NatSci is very competitive so if you do end up into other areas (or thinking about your fourth/fifth choices) - physical chemistry (i.e. a third of a chemistry degree) is reasonably physics based and numerical so you can specialise in that if you're interested in that side and it can also be combined with programming because there's a lot of research in computational and theoretical modelling fields. There are also courses like 'Chemical Physics' which are sort of Chemistry and Physics, only a few of them like NatSci though but would fit with the PS I suspect. Engineering is far more physics based than chemistry, more maths involved overall. As for languages (good choice!) I don't think you can combine them into NatSci, not sure on how flexible the course is but I imagine there's a whole host of other things they'd prefer you to cover. Chemistry first year usually has some flexibility (I did a module of German), but there's also year abroad courses (places like France, Germany, Japan etc. dependent on university) which require you to take language modules. Not sure if that's available with engineering or not, fairly sure not with NatSci. Most universities will allow you to take language modules outside of your degree though (places like Cambridge might be funny about that, with the workload intensity but i'm not sure so it's worth checking).
(edited 9 years ago)

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