A Level help!

I'm currently in year 11 trying to work out what to do for my next steps for a levels. I know that I want to stay on at my school's sixth form and thought I knew which subjects I wanted to do but I'm worried that I'm not going to enjoy them and I'm going to regret not choosing other subjects that I think I would really enjoy just because of what teachers want me to do and what I've been expected to do etc.

I've applied to sixth form to study 4 A levels: Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Product Design. My main worry is that these are very content heavy subjects with the main reason I applied for them being I thought I wanted to do engineering, specifically environmental engineering. However, I chose to also apply for Product Design as I know that I need creative subjects. I am a very creative person and I need some kind of formal outlet for this (eg. an actual qualification and needing to do something creative for school) as if not I will just push it aside and act like it is less important when, in reality, if I don't have some kind of creative outlet all of my other studies and my mental health suffers.

I originally was going to go to college to do a vocational course in Land and Wildlife management, however I changed my mind as the entry requirements were fairly low (5 grade 4s) and I feared this was going to reflect the level of the course and as I am predicted grade 8/9 in subjects at GCSE, I didn't want to risk finding it boring or too easy.

Anyway:
I'm now considering whether I want to go into engineering as with my need for creativity, I'm not sure if engineering will satisfy it enough. Something I've always thought I would love doing would be to become an illustrator. I've always thought I wanted to do something to do with the environment as I feel a responsibility to help improve the state of the world, but being artistic is something I need and it makes me happy :smile:

NUA offers an amazing Illustration course that I would love to do, I'm just not sure what a levels/btecs to do to get in, as I don't particularly want to do art a level. I feel like I've been expected to go into a career in something more 'academic' because I'm decent at school and get decent grades, but I just don't know if I can imagine doing something in science for a long time.

The sixth form is also offering a btec national diploma in performing arts and even though I never thought I would really seriously consider this, I had a taster day session of it yesterday and really enjoyed it, and love the idea of gaining confidence from it too as its something I'd really like to improve, and it also just looks like it would be so much fun (even though I didn't do GCSE drama) even though it's not something I'm necessarily considering a career in (but who knows). I'm currently in my school show and absolutely love it, and used to sing and dance when I was younger. If I wanted to do illustration at uni I would need to do an arty btec and the ones that my sixth form offers are Graphics or Fashion and Clothing (which I am doing at gcse, don't really want to do it at a level). I thought I might be able to do a btec and 2 a levels, however, I don't think I would be able to get in to the NUA Illustration course if I were to do 2 a levels and the btec performing arts as the NUA website states I would need 3 a levels, but would I be able to combine the a levels and btec, especially as the btec is worth the equivalent of 2 a levels?

Sorry for the very long lost, any (preferably positive) advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Reply 1

username5706823

You don't need 4 A-levels.. only do 4 if the 4th one is FM and FM is good for engineering. Also maths and physics are not content heavy A-levels and chem is slightly more content heavy than those two but still I wouldn't call it content heavy.