Hi, I've just finished my GCSE's but I'm struggling a bit deciding whether to pick History or Economics for A-level next year.
I have decided on doing Maths + Further Maths, Physics, German, and then either History or Economics for my last slot. I am fairly sure I want to study Economics at university, but I realise that if I chose A-level Economics instead of History, I would not have a full-on essay subject. Would this lack of an essay subject be a disadvantage if I applied for an Economics degree? And would the lack of an essay-subject narrow my options if I wanted to do something other than Economics, especially given that Economics is not considered a "facilitating subject", and that History is probably a little more well-regarded? All else aside, if I were to apply for an economics degree, do you think the uni would prefer history or economics?
I was also considering applying to a US university, because they offer more scope for learning about things unrelated than your major. Would it be a disadvantage to have an A-level as narrow/specific as Economics if I decided to apply to a US uni if they are looking more for all-round ability?
For History, my main concern is the workload - at GCSE despite finding the subject really interesting and despite getting fairly good grades, I found it was very demanding in terms of revision time (I think I ended up spending more time on Hist than all my other subjects combined!), and even then I was still thrown by one of the essay questions in the GCSE paper. Given that A-levels are supposedly a lot harder than GCSE's, I'm not sure whether I'd be able to survive the onslaught of essays! If you did History at A-level, how did you find the workload? Is it very difficult to get an A*? Another consideration is that whereas the GCSE course focused on Modern History (Treaty of Versailles, WW2, Cold War, Nazis etc.) which I loved, the A-level course at my school will be on things like the England in the mid C17th, France in late C18th, and Russia 1856-1950. While the Russian revolution sounds fun, lots of the course is history from hundreds of years ago, which I feel could get a little tedious. I don't know what it would be like to study history from that long ago, but I am worried that it could get a little tedious and boring, given that unlike modern history I feel it doesn't really tie in that much with the present world. Not to mention the fact that entire course is European history. Am I being closed-minded in thinking that C17th English history will probably be boring and irrelevant? If you've done A-level history covering that sort of time period, what did you think of it? Is it very different to modern history? Is there any way I would be able to tell whether or not I would enjoy it?
Sorry for such a long post - any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!