What career options do I have?

I’m doing computer science, chemistry and combined English at A-level. What are my degree and career options? Still undecided

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Nyacat

I’m doing computer science, chemistry and combined English at A-level. What are my degree and career options? Still undecided

What are my degree and career options?
Should have really thought about this before you picked your subjects. You're making it a bit more challenging than it needs to be.

All 3 of your subjects are at least semi-required subjects.
Chemistry is a required subject for a number of degrees in chemistry and life sciences, including medicine.
Computer science is semi-required for some degrees in CS, but most of them require maths. CS is also sometimes treated as a second "science" subject for some degrees (this will vary from uni to uni as well as degree to degree, so you would need to check).
English is sometimes required for English degrees at top end unis.

Then you can do degrees that require 3 A Levels in any subjects. These include:

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Anything in business expect for financial mathematics and actuarial science (for obvious reasons)

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Law

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Anthropology

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Archaeology

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Sociology and criminology

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Most psychology degrees

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Some degrees in creative writing and English literature

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Nonquantiative economics degrees

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Education

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Theology

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Politics

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Philosophy

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Linguistics

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Agriculture

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Some art and design degrees, including architecture

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Some geography degrees (usually ones with emphasis on human geography)

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Some history degrees

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Some nutrition degrees

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Film

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Game design

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Hospitality

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Property and urban planning

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Journalism

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Media studies

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Nursing

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Paramedic science

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Social work

See TSR's tool: https://www.theuniguide.co.uk/a-level-explorer

In terms of careers, there are only a handful of careers that would require specific degrees. These tend to be in healthcare, academia, and teaching. The sort of careers where you would ultimately end up with a degree or equivalent in order to progress into the role from an apprenticeship (or a graduate role via a degree) would be in engineering, architecture, economics, scientific research, healthcare, teaching, social work, and law.
Once you have completed any 3 A Levels, you would be open to 600+ different careers.

As you have not specified anything that you want in a career or an inkling of the sort of careers to go into, it would be pretty pointless for me to go into detail about this. I would not write about details of 800+ different careers in a thread, where the information could easily fill books (as some authors out there have already done).

If you want to figure this out yourself, I recommend checking the following (if you are based in the UK):
https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-careers
https://life-pilot.co.uk/job-sectors/sectors
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/browse-sector
https://www.careerpilot.org.uk/job-sectors/sectors

If you have some idea of how to narrow 800+ different careers down (or at least have a shortlist of what you want), then I might be able to help point you in some sort of vague direction. If not, good luck.

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 2

normaw

Volunteer Section Leader, Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by Nyacat

I’m doing computer science, chemistry and combined English at A-level. What are my degree and career options? Still undecided

For degree inspiration, go on a few uni websites and scroll through the course list and click on anything you find vaguely interesting. As well as options such as chemistry or English, you could consider natural sciences, environmental/earth sciences, linguistics, english and creative writing, etc.

You could also consider more vocational degrees such as the Allied Health Professions - speech and language therapy, dietetics, radiography, etc.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/ahp/role/

The following is a good resource for careers research:

https://www.prospects.ac.uk/

Reply 3

McGinger

Have a look at different courses/subjects on Uni websites, and see what the required A level subjects ('entry requirements') actually are. Many subjects may surprise you - for example, Law and many other Social Sciences have no required subjects, they just want 3 specific grades. Examples Undergraduate Courses, Degrees : Study : University of Sussex and Subjects - Courses - University of Liverpool

Also - this is a good careers website, with hundreds of different careers/job descriptions - Job profiles | Prospects.ac.uk
And have a look at possible apprenticeships - Find an apprenticeship - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)