Choosing A Levels

Burly said:
. Maths and a science is very important and I think should be compulsory.
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I'd disagree. I was pretty good at Science GCSE, I got a double B grade without putting too much effort in, the step up to chemistry and physics a-levels was immense. I couldn't cope with it and consequently dropped physics after AS.

There's no point doing a subject you're going to get a poor grade in, because unfortunately more often than not it works on UCAS points NOT the a-levels you took.

You get some dappy git who gets three A*'s in drama, RE and media and you get a person who gets three B's in English Literature, Biology and Maths, it will be the person with the most UCAS points they are more likely give the place to. It's unfortunate and a sad fact of life that they can and do sometimes reduce the numbers just by looking at those of whom did not get the required grades.

Even now, applying for training contract application for law firms - having completed my a-levels, a degree and now doing a post grad law course - are all asking on the application forms "How many UCAS points did you get?" and then want you to list the subjects and grades.

All the waffle about why you're "the better candidate" more often than not is just used to decide between candidates with very similar grades.

So my advice, stick to what your good at. If it lends itself heavily to the course you want to study at university then all the better. i.e. you want to study English at uni, study English a-level, you want to study history, study history a-level, you want to study Law, don't study law a-level (they don't like it in law apparently, I assume because the law changes too much between the years and they don't want all these cocky kids coming in thinking they know it all already)
 
Think about what you want to do at University primarily, because A-levels are just a stepping stone to this phase.

Look at the prospectus for a University you'd like to attend and see what the course requirements are. Don't take A-levels that aren't recognised or appreciated.
 
What Fusion said.

The other comment I'd make: From what you've said you're interested in, I would seriously look at doing some form of English A-level.

FWIW, Russell Group 'facilitating' (i.e. recommended) A-levels are:

• Mathematics and Further Maths
• English
• Physics
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Geography
• History
• Languages (Classical and Modern)
 
Don't worry much about choosing A-levels to get you into a Russell Group uni. Granted it was five years ago but my English Lit, Sociology and Psychology were enough to get me an unconditional offer from Nottingham.

In terms of your degree course, why do you want to study History? It's quite different at university and has a dreaded focus on historiography which I know a lot of people hated. This may be course in-fighting, but we (as Politics students) all tended to look down on History as more of an arts degree and had a lot more respect for Economics and 'harder' subject students. This isn't to say don't do history, but more to say to take a look at Politics if you're interested in the subject. Nottingham Uni has a great British Politics department :)
 
You need to plan on what you want to do at uni and tailor the subjects to that.

I went to do Engineering and for my A-levels I wanted to do - Physics, Geography, D&T as I they were my best subjects, but there was no Maths. So I had to drop Geopgraphy and slip in Maths.

It may not be what you WANT to do, but you will need to start planning ahead and growing up thinking what is required. You can't always do what is most fun and you are best at ;)
 
Chives said:
Could you elaborate on this? Not really sure what you mean.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography

It's basically learning about the way in which history itself is studied, i.e. the theories and approaches that historians apply. To give a politics comparison, it was like us reading Marx, Plato, Realism, Constructivism etc. to give us a background on how the study of politics has evolved.
 
flibbage0 said:
British Government is a subject?
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British Government & Politics is one I did. Encompasses a history of British politics, government and how it works. We also did supranational bodies (i.e. the EU, it's workings etc) the USA (it's workings etc).

Very comprehensive subject and something of a misnomer. Thoroughly enjoyable subject - much more than the garbage they teach at University which has rarely ever felt like more than Philosophy 101.
 
weringo said:
ICT is a horrendous A-level, I can tell you that speaking from the experience of doing it. Half the time was spent learning basic Excel and Access skills whilst the rest was learning useless pieces of information such as a mouse being an input device :p
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God don't remind me. :p
 
IceBus said:
Care to elaborate?
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The politics modules that are non-elective for me are not about political issues in the world today, they're more about looking at different schools of political thought. For example, we'll have modules that look at Marxism or accounts of Plato that aren't anywhere near the depth of what my Philosophy student buddies would study, nor are they directly relevant to any current issues.

Don't get me wrong, there is merit to a great deal of the things we've studied from an academic standpoint, but to call the course Politics is somewhat misleading; Political Philosophy would be more appropriate. In fact, we had a module that was a compulsory one for two semesters that looked in painstaking detail at epistemology and ontology of philosophical works. That was a grind!

From what I can gather from my peers, going down the International Relations route is more fertile if you wish to study current political issues, which I find to be far more interesting. If the University I go to offered a course that could have tied it to my Economics course when I applied, I would have switched to it.

All that being said, there were 2 modules that were 1 semester each that were focussed more on current political issues. Sadly they were electives and I had to sacrifice doing economics modules in order to do them. I can't say how it works at other universities, but I would just say to be wary when you get to the application stages if you were to follow such a route.
 
/runs in

Quickest thing to point out ever is PLEASE DO politics! (sounds like they renamed my best a-level with a bit more about the british gov) Its the one course that set me up properly to write essays and analyse media (written and verbal) in a sensible manner (and made the first year of my undergraduate much simpler as I didn't have to listen too hard for most of it). For me they didn't go much into heavy political theory which is the most sensible thing to do at a-level and if you do it right its a good and easy grade :)

Id advise only doing 2 of the 3 options of history, sociology and politics though as you'll be missing out on other types of education as these are all pretty similar style courses (different content but delivered in the same way and can get a bit dull).

As others have said you dont really need ICT as telling people you can use office and things is more than enough (and essay work kind of ensures you know how to use it anyway).

When I did my a-levels I ended up doing history, politics, maths and physics. Don't do physics unless your good at independent learning (my teachers were very poor at teaching it) and want to get a good grade (I ended up with a U at as so dropped it). Maths is fun as it only got hard at the end, but doing something from the core subjects is always a good idea as it leaves more doors open in the future (my stat's a-level has left me correcting university lecturers who don't understand basic statistical significance...)
 
I found ICT a waste of time, if your interested in computers then computing would be better. We had to do about why a leaflet used certain colours and font styles then write pages of reasons why they were used, it was a joke of a subject.
 
Theophany said:
Lots of info
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Where do you study and what year are you in? At Nottingham we had a pretty fixed first year (took two electives) and after that it got progressively free-er with only two compulsory modules in second year and totally free in third year.

Can you not still take economics modules if they are the right number of credits?

I went down the IR route and couldn't have been happier, studying democratisation, terrorism and security issues.
 
IceBus said:
Where do you study and what year are you in? At Nottingham we had a pretty fixed first year (took two electives) and after that it got progressively free-er with only two compulsory modules in second year and totally free in third year.

Can you not still take economics modules if they are the right number of credits?

I went down the IR route and couldn't have been happier, studying democratisation, terrorism and security issues.
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3rd (final) year at Exeter. Our flexibility has increased annually, but still have 2 compulsory modules this year (one politics, one economics). I have done all but two economics electives every year, with the only politics ones being a British G&P module and an American G&P module because they weren't drab political theory/philosophy modules.

From what I have heard from friends, IR is a much more real-world (and thus interesting!) application of politics and I do wish I would have been able to switch when I was a fresher.
 
Just to re-iterate what I've already said, please do sensible subjects such as maths and science. No matter what field you choose to go into you will be using these skills frequently.

If you're interested in computing or economics, A level maths is going to be far more of a help than the actual A level course in that subject will be. When you get to university they will assume no previous knowledge of the subject, but will expect familiarity with mathematics.
 
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