Urgent a-level help

I have my college enrolment TOMORROW and I need to confirm my course choices. I had chosen Biology, Psychology and Geography and I have passed all of the entry requirements for these subjects but I'm having doubts. I'm almost certain that I don't want to take Biology anymore as I've come to realise that I probably won't be good enough and I am already worrying about falling behind with my work when I haven't even started yet! I've got my heart set on taking Psychology but my parents don't want me to as they don't believe it's a "real science". The only course I'm 100% sure about anymore is Geography!

Instead of Biology, I'm considering the following courses: English Language, English Lit + Lang, History (Modern), Environmental Science or Drama. Literally ANY advice is helpful! I'm stressing hard and could use anyone's assistance! Keep in mind, I would like to be a psychologist when I grow up. THANK YOU!

What career are you interested? Depending on what you wanted to do in the future, the subjects that you’ll take are important.

The first thing to do is take a deep breath - as a big worrier myself, I understand how hard it can be to keep calm in situations like this!

I also understand that you might have lost belief in yourself for biology, but I do think one of the ‘main’ 3 sciences is a good idea, considering your future aspirations. Are your doubts definite? You may just be worrying and overthinking, is there any way you could change later on (a couple weeks into the term) so you at least get to try it?

If you do choose to replace it, a facilitating subject is probably a good idea if you aren’t really sure exactly what to replace it with.

Overall, the main advice I’ve heard for making a decision is to put all of the options into a hat and choose one at random. If you’re happy with what comes out, great, but if you feel a bit disappointed, then you know that it might not be the right choice for you!

I wish you luck in making this decision. Let me know if I can help any more.

Pick what you enjoy, a good way to figure out what you like is to imagine you had to go back into school for a day, what subjects would you pick to go back in to do?

Try to pick subjects that complement each other (e.g Maths and Physics, Art and Graphics etc). A tip is to look for what Universities want you to have to be able study the courses you want.

Also be smart about your choices (if you want to be a Geographer, will something like Drama help with that?).

Remember not to get too worked up about it since most colleges allow you to change subjects in the first two weeks. Good Luck!

Have you thought about which universities you want to go to? Some universities ask for 2 science subjects for psychology.

Hey! Firstly, don't panic. If worst comes to worst, you can almost definitely change one of your A-Level courses up until about Christmas time (latest). I am starting Psychology at uni in September and I did Geography, Psychology and Philosophy. For me, this was a good mix as I had a subject that I loved (Psych), a subject that challenged me (Geog), and a subject that I loved and was relatively good at (Philosophy). It seems to me like you should just do what you ENJOY. If you do not enjoy a subject, you will naturally not work as hard at it and therefore will not do as well as you could do. (Funnily enough, I was going to do Biology instead of Geography and changed just before I started the course - turns out to be the best choice I could've made. All of my Biology friends found it very hard and a lot of work. That should not put you off though, as it may well be a different board, and you obviously have different teachers etc, but just thought I'd mention.) Regarding some uni's wanting 2 sciences for Psychology, this is true but most seem to accept both Psychology and Geography as sciences now and so Biology would not be absolutely necessary (if that was your only reason for doing it). Ultimately, do what YOU want to do and what you like. Your parents are not the ones that are going to have to study the subject for 2 years and take exams on it at the end. Good luck!! And if you have any questions (in general or about Psychology at uni) just lemme know x

Ahhh thank you so much! You've been very helpful! I absolutely LOVED Geography at GCSE (and I'm proud to say I got a 9 in it!) so I really wanted to carry on with it at A-Level. I've also really wanted to study Psychology for such a long time now as I find it extremely interesting so I'm super excited to try it out. I really enjoyed English Language and I'd like to say I have quite the talent for it (I got an 8 in my GCSE) so I feel like that's taking my interest at the moment. One of the main reasons I was taking Biology was to try and 'open as many doors as possible for myself' but I really don't think I would enjoy the course at all.

How did you find Psychology and Geography at A-Level? And are you looking forward to studying it at Uni? (if you don't mind me asking!)

In that case then, it sounds like you have made your decision! And that sounds sensible - English is also, obviously, well regarded at uni’s too! I think, especially with a subject as tricky as Biology, you have got to really love it and/or be good at it to succeed (I have many friends that both loved it and were getting A/A*s in it all year and ended up getting Bs!) Additionally, I am not really sure that it would open a lot more doors to be honest. It all depends on what you want to do in the future - I have learnt throughout Yr 12/13, though, that there is almost always more than one route to things, so if you really want something, there will most likely be a way for you to do it, regardless of your A Levels!! That said, if you do decided to take it, I’m sure you will do just fine!!

Of course I don’t mind you asking! I loved Psychology (obviously haha) and it is not too tricky but there is a lot of content. My biggest tip would be to revise the things you are learning as you go so that when you come to the end of Yr 13, you don’t have to reteach yourself the stuff that you learnt at the beginning of Yr 12 - your just reminding yourself! I didn’t do this and it led to a lot of very stressed cramming during study leave and I wish I had listened to people that told me to consolidate the content as we learnt it!

Geography was a last minute choice of me, as I said, but before that I absolutely did not want to do it. I didn’t love it at GCSE but I still managed to get an A so thought it would be a decent choice. I ended up having a bit of a love-hate relationship with it to be honest hahah. I would very much recommend trying to get your coursework (if you do it at your college) done as quickly as possible - don’t let it drag on. My teachers were so relaxed about the deadlines and so I didn’t hand mine in until March (which was literally just before mocks so it was, again, a lot of stress). Again, Geography has a lot of content to learn so consolidation is helpful throughout the two years. For this I made colourful mindmaps around every bullet point of the spec to make sure I hadn’t missed anything (I would recommend revising in a way similar to this because the questions can be very specific - by covering every bullet point of the spec, you are prepared for any questions that can come up (the questions are effectively just bullet points of the spec reworded!).) This method (somehow!!) got me an A* after I had been struggling throughout both Yr 12 and 13 so I hope it could help you too?

And yes! I am looking forward to studying it at uni - I’m a bit nervous because I expect it to be a big BIG jump up from A Level Psychology but I find it so interesting so I’m more just excited!

I'm thinking about doing psychology at uni and then I want to be a pyschologist!