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Languages or maths-based EPQ topic and title ideas?

Hey guys, I am going into year 12 and have picked maths, further maths, French, and computer science. My school offers the EPQ and expects us to take a few extra extra-curricular/outside of timetabled lesson courses to make our UCAS applications look good for year 13, and I really like the idea of the EPQ since it requires a good amount of commitment and looks a lot better on your application than something like 'cooking on a budget' or some of the other extra-curriculars my school offers.

I get that it has zero chance of lowering my offer and is only nice to talk about in an interview, but even still I really would like to do one. I'm certain I will be doing something with maths at degree level and I have found some combined maths/languages degrees at a few unis so languages could be on the table too (even if they're not, I would still want to continue learning a few languages after A levels in uni on the side), so an EPQ based around maths or languages would be really good. The only problem is that I don't know what I could do for maths, and the depth to which I would have to go in a maths EPQ would require a lot of A level knowledge, which means I wouldn't be able to do the EPQ until a month or so in.

For a languages EPQ, it might be unrelated if I decide to just do a pure maths degree at uni, but I think there are better possibilities and more interesting EPQ ideas and topics, but I don't know what would be the 'right' type of title and topic to cover. I know you can supposedly pick anything to be your topic and title, but I don't want to be too broad and basic e.g. comparing two languages' grammar rules and conventions, but then I don't think it'd be good to pick a topic that's very specific since you're meant to research in-depth and get a lot of sources for your work, and if no one has done it before then you'll have a hard time.

I was thinking about something that sounds like it fits the template of a lot of other EPQs I've seen (discusses a highly-debated and opinionated issue, the issue is a contemporary one, the EPQ writer can develop an opinion about their EPQ focus as they go along) which is the use of Chinese characters in east-Asian countries and what benefits is has, what are the negatives, and should they be changed so that every word in the each language can be written phonetically and pronounced just by looking at it (as opposed to having to just 'know' that one character is pronounced a certain way).

I don't know how 'good' that EPQ idea is, so if you have any opinions on it then let me know, plus I'd love to hear some other language EPQ ideas or some maths ones if you have any.
Reply 1
Just to address your point about offers, a couple of my friends did actually have their offers lowered because of their EPQ. :smile: It does depend where you're applying, though.
Are there any topics you have encountered in your mathematical studies which you have found especially interesting?
Original post by Beth_H
Just to address your point about offers, a couple of my friends did actually have their offers lowered because of their EPQ. :smile: It does depend where you're applying, though.


Sheffield and Southampton state it, few others do.

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