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Year 13s: Are you confident in the courses or subjects you’re studying this year?

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Year 13s: Are you confident in the courses or subjects you're studying this year?

For those of you in Year 13, this is a huge year. :albertein:

Final exams, figuring out what you want to do next and all the decisions that come with it, and for most, it will feel like there is so much riding on your results that it’s only natural if you're feeling either confident or a bit uncertain about the subjects you’ve chosen.

So, let’s find out: Are you confident in the courses or subjects you’re studying this year?

Vote in the poll and share your thoughts below -

Do you wish you had picked something different?
How's the workload compared to Year 12?
How have your choices impacted your thoughts about what you want to do next?

Looking forward to hearing more about how you're feeling :h:

Reply 1

Just tagging in some of our Year 13 top posters in Study Help - How are you all feeling so far about that above? :^_^:

(feel free to ignore the tag!)


Spoiler

Reply 2

thanks for the tag, one small issue, I’m actually a uni fresher now 😬

Reply 3

have fun children. you WILL get through it

Reply 4

Original post
by eurotasking
thanks for the tag, one small issue, I’m actually a uni fresher now 😬

Whoops! some of our data may not have updated yet, hope you're enjoying it though :biggrin:

Reply 5

Original post
by CamembertPaws
For those of you in Year 13, this is a huge year. :albertein:
Final exams, figuring out what you want to do next and all the decisions that come with it, and for most, it will feel like there is so much riding on your results that it’s only natural if you're feeling either confident or a bit uncertain about the subjects you’ve chosen.
So, let’s find out: Are you confident in the courses or subjects you’re studying this year?
Vote in the poll and share your thoughts below -
Do you wish you had picked something different?
How's the workload compared to Year 12?
How have your choices impacted your thoughts about what you want to do next?
Looking forward to hearing more about how you're feeling :h:


Bio Chem and Maths rn!!!

I do not regret my subjects one bit, but I feel like i can never be fully confident no matter how much i revise. 🙃🙃

Honestly, i have somehow found year13 so much more chill? I think its because in year 12, i was not expecting such a big jump from GCSEs, and i did not realise how much i needed to pay attention in lessons lol. Managing workload was a struggle for me in year 12! But now that I’m more used to the workload (still have some improvement to make), i am enjoying it a lot more- which I’m suprised to admit!! Especially because of all the early applicant stuff which i thought would result in me falling behind! I do know that it will slowly get worse, but right now im just enjoying it and taking everything slow and organised! So if you are in year 12 and you’re finding it packed and busy, know that thats completely normal!!! I do not think the amount of work decreases, it most certainly has increased - I’ve just become better at managing it :smile:

I originally had no idea what i wanted to do, was stuck between finance and medicine, but I think doing bio, problem solving in chem, and helping my peers in maths really made me realise that medicine combines all the things i love doing! But if im being completely honest, i still am uncertain about what I want to do in the future - as are many of my peers! I think that is not spoken about enough!! I always assumed everyone knew exactly what they wanted to do except me ahha


Final thoughts:
Kind of excited for a levels? To finish them of course, alongside interviews for uni etc! I know it will get busier as time passes, but i am a mixture of nervous and excited for the challenge! I think its an experience i will be grateful for in the future, because I will learn a lot from it:smile:


Good luck to everyone this year!! You’ll smash it!

Reply 6

Original post
by CamembertPaws
For those of you in Year 13, this is a huge year. :albertein:
Final exams, figuring out what you want to do next and all the decisions that come with it, and for most, it will feel like there is so much riding on your results that it’s only natural if you're feeling either confident or a bit uncertain about the subjects you’ve chosen.
So, let’s find out: Are you confident in the courses or subjects you’re studying this year?
Vote in the poll and share your thoughts below -
Do you wish you had picked something different?
How's the workload compared to Year 12?
How have your choices impacted your thoughts about what you want to do next?
Looking forward to hearing more about how you're feeling :h:

Hii, thank you for the tag (this is actually the first time I've been tagged! :smile:)

I'm taking maths, chemistry and biology at A level (home educated and self-taught), and I'm happy to say I don't regret my choices in the slightest. They were my favourite subjects at IGCSE, so choosing them for A level actually felt more like a natural progression than a tough choice. Honestly, I enjoyed studying all three in Year 12, and now that I'm in Year 13, I'd say I'm actually enjoying them even more. Sure, the content has gotten more challenging and there are some topics that I still don't like (yes, ecology, I'm looking at you!), but overall, it's been a great experience so far.

I'll hopefully be applying to study chemistry (with medicinal chemistry) at uni later this year, still working on my application though!

Good luck to everyone this year! You've got this :smile:

Reply 7

Original post
by CamembertPaws
Just tagging in some of our Year 13 top posters in Study Help - How are you all feeling so far about that above? :^_^:
(feel free to ignore the tag!)

Spoiler


I feel like the workload is not like higher overall but has shifted a bit in which subjects require more work. The maths curriculum was taught quite fast in Y12 so it's calming down a bit and we'll be finished by Christmas with all the content. Physics seems to be picking up a fair bit in difficulty and the amount of assessments, homework and how difficult practicals are. It probably will feel a bit worse one we start getting exam papers as homework.

Art has a very similar workload but this time we're actually doing things that will get marked as appose to i guess the prep work we did in year 12 (that still seems really stupid to me but apparently it's normal). I also have a feeling our work will be checked and marked more often which i'm honestly pretty happy about, sometimes i just need that pressure + the advice afterwards.

I would say i feel semi-confident. Like i probably am not hitting those top grades but for the university courses I'm looking at everything should be fine. I've found the worst thing is that hearing others being very stressed tends to rub off on me.

Reply 8

i do wished i picked 3 a levels instead of 4-still can’t decide what to drop but it’s going well.
workloads similar, but im doing some more non homework schoolwork on top of it.
choices haven’t really impacted me, ive always wanted to do history and German since year 9 or so.

Reply 9

Haha I swear everyone is taking Bio, Chem, Maths!! I am too 😂
I do enjoy the subjects and find them really interesting, but i'm not so good at them. They were probably the lowest grades I got in GCSEs, so I think I kind of just wanted to prove to myself that I could actually do them
I wish I took Bio, History and Psychology, but if I did I don't know if I would have done an EPQ as well because it is very content heavy. I'm doing law at uni so this would have been a great combo - I used to want to do medicine so chose stem subjects 😅
I'm relatively confident. I know I can do well in Bio and have to work really hard in maths and chem. My brain just isn't very mathsy so I take a lot longer to understand the equations and what not. I'm just praying it goes well!!

Reply 10

Original post
by CamembertPaws
For those of you in Year 13, this is a huge year. :albertein:
Final exams, figuring out what you want to do next and all the decisions that come with it, and for most, it will feel like there is so much riding on your results that it’s only natural if you're feeling either confident or a bit uncertain about the subjects you’ve chosen.
So, let’s find out: Are you confident in the courses or subjects you’re studying this year?
Vote in the poll and share your thoughts below -
Do you wish you had picked something different?
How's the workload compared to Year 12?
How have your choices impacted your thoughts about what you want to do next?
Looking forward to hearing more about how you're feeling :h:

1) No. Because almost no school offers A-Level Electronics to begin with. But if my Sixth Form offered it, I would have picked that in a heartbeat over Economics.
2) I feel like I am going to be called insane if I say it is less tedious than last year. I get bored in most of my lessons at the moment. Only Mathematics is actually fun.
3) They have not. I have started considering other courses within the last year, but the A-Levels I do don't really restrict what I can do within my own set of interests. My interests have only really evolved anyway based on what I currently do in my spare time and what I have found interesting for quite a long time anyway. (I used to consider solely CompSci for university, however I am now currently considering courses that lean a bit more towards Electrical Engineering too.)

Reply 11

I am guessing y13 is the equiv of s5/6?
I’m doing advanced art (harder than a level) higher photography and computer science (like in between a level and gcse?) and nat 5 woodwork (gcse equiv)
the art subjects are mostly fine, photography is a lot of work but not difficult work just a TON of writing and research.
computing is hard, i’ve not done it before in school and kind of gotten anxious and skipped about half of it already thanks to the guys in my class as well as just me not knowing what i’m doing so… hopefully it’s okay?
I have all my entry requirements already thankfully so the only thing i really need to focus on is art for my portfolio so it’s less stress than last year where i needed to absolutely pass everything

Reply 12

I'm loving sociology and psychology, especially now we've started psychopathology in year 13! I think I can get an A or more.

I really hate religious studies. It's so much content, none of it based on common sense like the other 2, and in year 13 I have to listen to my human rights being debated! yay!(not) I wish I picked something else because I'm not confident I can get an A/A* which is what I'm aiming for.

The amount of homework is ridiculous. I can't revise at all because I have no free time. I'm going to have to give up my break on Thursdays (I currently go out with friends during it) when it gets closer to exams so I can revise. I'm really struggling with that aspect of college, luckily sociology and psychology need minimal revision.

I'm excited for psychology at uni and wish I could do psychology and sociology combined but that's not an option. maybe I can study sociology as a mature student one day 😔
(edited 3 months ago)

Reply 13

Original post
by K0kiko
I am guessing y13 is the equiv of s5/6?
I’m doing advanced art (harder than a level) higher photography and computer science (like in between a level and gcse?) and nat 5 woodwork (gcse equiv)
the art subjects are mostly fine, photography is a lot of work but not difficult work just a TON of writing and research.
computing is hard, i’ve not done it before in school and kind of gotten anxious and skipped about half of it already thanks to the guys in my class as well as just me not knowing what i’m doing so… hopefully it’s okay?
I have all my entry requirements already thankfully so the only thing i really need to focus on is art for my portfolio so it’s less stress than last year where i needed to absolutely pass everything

What do you learn in your Computing lessons, if you're familiar with the specification?

Reply 14

Original post
by CamembertPaws
For those of you in Year 13, this is a huge year. :albertein:
Final exams, figuring out what you want to do next and all the decisions that come with it, and for most, it will feel like there is so much riding on your results that it’s only natural if you're feeling either confident or a bit uncertain about the subjects you’ve chosen.
So, let’s find out: Are you confident in the courses or subjects you’re studying this year?
Vote in the poll and share your thoughts below -
Do you wish you had picked something different?
How's the workload compared to Year 12?
How have your choices impacted your thoughts about what you want to do next?
Looking forward to hearing more about how you're feeling :h:

Honestly not very confident
I'm taking geography, bio, chem and maths and its so stressful. I do wish i had swapped from chemistry to econ at the start of year 12 but by the time I'd realsied what i wanted to do it was too late to swap unfortunately. I do still enjoy all my subejcts its jsut love/hate with some of them sometimes
The workload is definitely more this year and Im just struggling with managing to fit in homework and revision. I have much better teachers this year but that also means way more homework than before unfortunately so I'm just trying to figure out time management.
They havent impacted what i want to do next as i still want to do urban planning and tbh doing these subjects just made me more certain that i'm making the right choice but not doing a stem degree lol
Good luck to everyone else in year 13 xx

Reply 15

Original post
by CamembertPaws
For those of you in Year 13, this is a huge year. :albertein:
Final exams, figuring out what you want to do next and all the decisions that come with it, and for most, it will feel like there is so much riding on your results that it’s only natural if you're feeling either confident or a bit uncertain about the subjects you’ve chosen.
So, let’s find out: Are you confident in the courses or subjects you’re studying this year?
Vote in the poll and share your thoughts below -
Do you wish you had picked something different?
How's the workload compared to Year 12?
How have your choices impacted your thoughts about what you want to do next?
Looking forward to hearing more about how you're feeling :h:

Im currently loving all my subjects (bio, env sci and maths) but this is something that i momentarily forget when presented with 1000s of bio flashcards, mechanics topics in maths or the mention of an env sci essay :giggle: Im planning to do zoology/ecology/biology at uni so feel like i have the ideal-ish combo for that (ik chem is recommended but its not for me lol)
Original post
by DerDracologe
Im currently loving all my subjects (bio, env sci and maths) but this is something that i momentarily forget when presented with 1000s of bio flashcards, mechanics topics in maths or the mention of an env sci essay :giggle: Im planning to do zoology/ecology/biology at uni so feel like i have the ideal-ish combo for that (ik chem is recommended but its not for me lol)


Sounds like that you have made a good decision for your subjects. And you will get good results in your exams as diligent as you are. :yes:

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