i have no idea what a levels to take

im in year 11 and im rEaLLy struggling with hat a levels to take. i wanna study history and politics at uni so obviously im taking history. im also definitely taking maths. however i have 2 more options that i could fill with any 2 of english, politics, french, latin or music. politics seems to be the most obvious option but i dont know whether it's actually worth it. askjdhjksh this is so hard

Reply 1

Chemusen

Advice from someone who's doing music AS- don't take it unless you have a real love for classical music. I don't- I'm more jazz and theatre orientated- and I've not really enjoyed. Also I've yet to meet a person who enjoys French at A-Level but I don't do it so idk. Just my input.

Reply 2

Joe_01

Original post by redahaha

My friend does politics and it seems to be a definite worth while subject! What you can do is have a look at the university’s you plan to go to and see if they have an preference on modules that contains one of those other subjects, it just makes your life easier when you go to uni! I’d also say, do the subjects you are good at and the ones you enjoy since you will have to do a lot of work on your subjects outside lessons and you need to have the motivation to do that work!

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

If you are very confident in your modern language ability, they're fairly relevant and useful to both the study of history and of politics. However A-level languages are, as I understand, quite a jump up from GCSE and require a lot of ongoing work, so if you aren't very strong in languages and/or confident of your ability in them, it may be a bit of a gamble. Arts subjects, including music to my knowledge, tend to have quite high ongoing workloads, so this is something to consider.

Latin might be an interesting option if you are particularly interested in ancient/medieval history and/or the history of political thought. I imagine some of the above caveats of modern languages apply though. If you aren't so interested in those areas it's probably less relevant than another option. Politics itself would obviously be relevant, as would geography or economics equally. English literature isn't really relevant in terms of subject matter but it will help you develop good transferable skills for the course you're considering. That said, if you don't particularly enjoy the analysis of literature, it may not be that enjoyable.

Really any of those options (and many besides) would be suitable, so I'd suggest picking the one you are most interested in and most confident you can do well in. If you absolutely can't make a decision, perhaps go for politics, since you'd be planning on studying that eventually anyway. You won't be disadvantaged by taking politics compared to the others (although you wouldn't be specifically advantaged by it either), so in the absence of any clear direction just taking the exact subject you are hoping to study will at least let you explore that more in a curricular manner and prepare you for later study in that area.

Reply 4

redahaha

cheers man, thats vv useful to know what someone doing politics acc thinks about it

Original post by Joe_01

Reply 5

redahaha

wow thank u sm. my problem is that i really like all my subjects and don't necessarily think im very weak in any of my options.

Original post by artful_lounger

Reply 6

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by redahaha

wow thank u sm. my problem is that i really like all my subjects and don't necessarily think im very weak in any of my options.

Bear in mind, subjects often change style or focus in the jump from GCSE to A-level; something you like, or perhaps just don't mind, now, may be much less amenable to you at A-level. I thought I liked all my subjects well enough at GCSE, and ended up doing IB (where I continued with most of them in some form, although started some new ones) and found through that some of them I actually strongly disliked. I realised I had merely tolerated those GCSE because while I wasn't interested in them, the GCSE content was easy enough that I did well in them. Once the content was harder, I found having to actually work at those subjects became a real chore.

So consider for example, unless you think you are very strong in languages, it may be better to not take a language. Likewise consider the above comments about A-level Music. I highlighted the notion of literary analysis for A-level English lit in this regard as well; if you aren't particularly interested or invested in literary analysis, theory, and criticism, then it's likely to not be that enjoyable.

I'd probably be inclined to suggest politics simply as it's the most directly relevant to your plans (which you presumably have a vested interest in) and thus least likely to end up being not what you expected and leading you to dislike it and/or struggle with it. It also relates more closely with history in terms of the A-level material specifically than any of the other options generally, and is as related in a more general sense as most other options you're considering.