Choosing A Levels

I've not read it all but I noticed you said that you didn't want to do English because it was all about analysing and not writing speeches and instead want to do history, which is very much about analysing.

Might I point out that there isn't really a degree about writing speeches and alike and if there was it wouldn't be worth anything.

Take your degree to match your future job not the other way around. You will be in uni for 3-4 years but you will be doing your job for the rest of your life.

Furthermore there are a lot of degree's and a levels not worth doing. Luckily when it comes to a level only the top few actually hold it against you for taking some of the subjects.

Be smart about what you choose to do at uni. In the real world its not what you learnt in your degree that matters but how high up the ladder it is.

For example you take classics, history and English. A classics degree is history but in the ancient era, it has about half the work load and is more about socialising than learning. As a result it cannot stand up to history and English at all. History is a well respected subject but it is still trumped by English because it has a higher work load.

Pick the job you want to do, then pick the degree which is top in its field. It is a pity you can't do science because science majorly trumps almost all other a levels and degrees.

Maths at A level is a big deal also, as has been pointed out. It is not that hard, they dumbed down the sciences so much at college it's a joke. Physics doesn't even contain maths any more. I have taught several people to do A level maths in my spare time as I do a maths degree.
You raise a good point about English, I'm basing that of what my teacher has said to me about it.
I'm looking at Degrees on the UCAS website now, something like International Relations & Journalism sounds good, seeing as I would like to (unlikely I know) enter journalism when I'm older, would a Degree like that be a good option?
 
Do you know what you want to do career wise? Only read OP and typed this as in a rush, I did a PGCE interview and several business interviews, companies have a lack of respect for those subjects outside of the core ones as they're thought to be easier. From your subject choice you sound like you're setting yourself up for a social science at uni. There is no real problem with this unless you become a waster like most in the 7hrs of class a week bracket, remember you will be paying about £40 per class, infact more with recent changes.

Think about what future careers interest you and go from there, if it were me personally I would avoid british govt and sociology. Go for computing if computer science interests you, ICT is far too lightweight, I would also pick a science such as biology if it interests you at all.
 
This is interesting, the school has linked us to a site called "kudos". The website asks you over 100 questions and then gives you a list of good career options based from that, this is what I got.
Editorial Assistant
Insurance Claims Inspector
Computer Programmer
Human Resources Officer
Excise Officer
Medical Secretary
Training Officer
VAT Officer
Magistrates' Court Assistant
Public Relations Officer
·[FONT=&quot] Credit Manager [/FONT]
·[FONT=&quot] Credit Controller [/FONT]

·[FONT=&quot] Insurance Loss Adjuster[/FONT]

Thoughts on these? The qualification Level I entered was A Level, GCSE and Degree which brought up these jobs.
 
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This is interesting, the school has linked us to a site called "kudos". The website asks you over 100 questions and then gives you a list of good career options based from that, this is what I got.
Editorial Assistant
Insurance Claims Inspector
Computer Programmer
Human Resources Officer
Excise Officer
Medical Secretary
Training Officer
VAT Officer
Magistrates' Court Assistant
Public Relations Officer
·[FONT=&quot] Credit Manager [/FONT]
·[FONT=&quot] Credit Controller [/FONT]

·[FONT=&quot] Insurance Loss Adjuster[/FONT]

Thoughts on these? The qualification Level I entered was A Level, GCSE and Degree which brought up these jobs.

What a levels and degree did you actually put in though? They all look like dead end jobs to me. I spose editorial assistant is a good start. Good to get things like that on your cv.

In the job world, particularly in finance, a lot of people will switch jobs every 18 months building up their c.v and gaining experience till they settle down on a job they really like or pays well.
 
The things you learn in your lectures you will likely not use in your job. There are exceptions with things like dentistry/medicine etc for obvious reasons. But even that, most of it you learn on the job.

I do, BA Politics :) Just wanted to dispel the ideal that Social Sciences degrees aren't useful on a daily basis.
 
Because in the real world most the other degree's cannot compete as they have far less workload and do not train your brain as well. They are the hardest to do well in in their field and consequently prove the most. That is what a degree is about, it's about training you to think a certain way and proving you can do it. I do maths and I could easily go further down the chain and get a first no problem but it wouldn't mean anything as good as a 2.1 or even a first in maths.

Woah woah woah, I'm going to have to call you out on that, what rubbish :p

Different degrees have different skill sets, some may be more challenging in some ways than others, but that doesn't mean that something is necessarily harder overall and therefore 'better' in any sense. Providing you have a decent degree from a respectable university you will hopefully find yourself employed in due course. Very few people end up doing what they think they are going to do as a teenager.

And as for the 'I could easily get a first in another subject', it just reeks of elitism in a very bad, smelly way.

My advice to the OP would be to do something that he enjoys, because your degree choice probably isn't as limiting as it is. By not doing maths I have missed out on being an actuary. Oh noes :p

1) Stay away from buisness/management. If you think you are going to come out and start up your own little shop or what ever you are deluded. Any managerial job worth having is going to have to go up against maths/chemistry/english/history/law and it will loose big time.
Business is more of a post-graduate thing really, but I have to laugh at your impression that maths or chemitry degrees are going to really be taking charge here :p

2) Pick your job then pick your degree so that you are good competition for the job you want.
You should have an idea of what you want to do, but your desires may change - they probably will.

So in summary, do something traditional but most importantly, do what feels right for you :)
 
I've not read it all but I noticed you said that you didn't want to do English because it was all about analysing and not writing speeches and instead want to do history, which is very much about analysing.

Might I point out that there isn't really a degree about writing speeches and alike and if there was it wouldn't be worth anything.

Take your degree to match your future job not the other way around. You will be in uni for 3-4 years but you will be doing your job for the rest of your life.

Furthermore there are a lot of degree's and a levels not worth doing. Luckily when it comes to a level only the top few actually hold it against you for taking some of the subjects.

Be smart about what you choose to do at uni. In the real world its not what you learnt in your degree that matters but how high up the ladder it is.

For example you take classics, history and English. A classics degree is history but in the ancient era, it has about half the work load and is more about socialising than learning. As a result it cannot stand up to history and English at all. History is a well respected subject but it is still trumped by English because it has a higher work load.

Pick the job you want to do, then pick the degree which is top in its field. It is a pity you can't do science because science majorly trumps almost all other a levels and degrees.

Maths at A level is a big deal also, as has been pointed out. It is not that hard, they dumbed down the sciences so much at college it's a joke. Physics doesn't even contain maths any more. I have taught several people to do A level maths in my spare time as I do a maths degree and they were not very bright and managed to get a b with hard work..
"It does contain maths", a large part of the syllabus is just basic maths. Given that they seem to accept people who are not doing A level maths it is pretty much a joke though.
Yeah I took further maths GCSE from an Irish exam board, it is actually significantly harder than As maths because it was so much work for just 1 year. A level maths is now just rinse and repeat, anyone who has access to the net can get a top A with minimal effort because the past papers are so repetitive.
Top universities definitely need to ramp A level maths up to A*. Physics is a joke in terms of the maths, just basic rearranging however it does contain some challenging questions that are hard to predict, it is pretty hard to answer some questions without some understanding from other sciences.
 
Drop sociology, unless you're aiming for a career that involes spouting meaningless drivel.

Nobody outside of the the social "sciences" has any respect for qualifications in sociology - might as well do media studies or Klingon.
 
Thread TLDR

From your first post....

I did History, Geography and Computer Science at A-Level.

Baring in mind I'm sure its changed since 2002, but for me

Geography = A-Level in colouring in.

Personally, if I had my choices again, and with the benefit of hindsight after 7 years in the workplace from your I'd do something like

Computing (Assuming its more like Comp Sci) Maths, Business Studies/Economics, Law, and then Physics.

From that I'd then do a degree in something like Computer Science and Economics/Business Management/whatever

Obviously, thats me, your you, and you need to pick things your interested in. Reason for saying those subjects and Degree choice is that subject to getting good marks in those you'll, IMO, fair better on more of the graduate schemes (If that is what you want to do).
 
Woah woah woah, I'm going to have to call you out on that, what rubbish :p

Different degrees have different skill sets, some may be more challenging in some ways than others, but that doesn't mean that something is necessarily harder overall and therefore 'better' in any sense. Providing you have a decent degree from a respectable university you will hopefully find yourself employed in due course. Very few people end up doing what they think they are going to do as a teenager.

Not sure what you are saying here. I never stated differnt degrees don't give you different skills. I'm saying some train you better than others and thats why they are more employerble. Name an easy degree that is better than a hard one then.
And as for the 'I could easily get a first in another subject', it just reeks of elitism in a very bad, smelly way.

A maths degree is one of the hardest degrees you can take and i'm just missing a first at the moment. So yes, I do believe I could take an easier degree and get a first. I fail to see why I wouldn't think that. My statement still stands, even if I took an easier degree and got a first in it and a 2.1 in maths the maths degree would look significantly better on my cv. Especially if I took math studies, I wouldn't be able to get into hardly anything with that.

My advice to the OP would be to do something that he enjoys, because your degree choice probably isn't as limiting as it is. By not doing maths I have missed out on being an actuary. Oh noes :p

I presume the maths dig is aimed at me. I've never told him to do maths. I've told him he should do English or history and choose English over history if he wants an easier time getting a job. You're just being ignorant if you think otherwise.

Business is more of a post-graduate thing really, but I have to laugh at your impression that maths or chemitry degrees are going to really be taking charge here :p

How strange then that the majority of high end management is held by those with maths/chemistry/history/law/english. Maybe its because they happened to be the degree's attracting the more intelligent people as a general trend. Maybe their degree's are significantly harder than others and thus prove their abilities greater and like I said, in management a cv is also super critical so the degree is not everything.
 
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"It does contain maths", a large part of the syllabus is just basic maths. Given that they seem to accept people who are not doing A level maths it is pretty much a joke though.
Yeah I took further maths GCSE from an Irish exam board, it is actually significantly harder than As maths because it was so much work for just 1 year. A level maths is now just rinse and repeat, anyone who has access to the net can get a top A with minimal effort because the past papers are so repetitive.
Top universities definitely need to ramp A level maths up to A*. Physics is a joke in terms of the maths, just basic rearranging however it does contain some challenging questions that are hard to predict, it is pretty hard to answer some questions without some understanding from other sciences.

Not sure if you read my post wrong as I said physics doesn't really contain maths anymore. It's stupidly dumbed down. Unless you were referring to the maths a level its self. The maths a level now basically says "ooo look you can learn basic calculus and then do a whole paper on it yay!". Such a joke.

Drop sociology, unless you're aiming for a career that involes spouting meaningless drivel.

Nobody outside of the the social "sciences" has any respect for qualifications in sociology - might as well do media studies or Klingon.

I'm glad someone else here is actually speaking sense instead of mindlessly trying to defend poor choices of degrees. I presume it is because they do them.
 
I'm saying some train you better than others and thats why they are more employerble. Name an easy degree that is better than a hard one then.
But what do you mean, train you better than others? A science degree isn't going to necessarily make you better at presenting your ideas in a meeting, or more approachable, or anything really. Except, you know, amazing p1000 or nematode skills.

A maths degree is one of the hardest degrees you can take and i'm just missing a first at the moment. So yes, I do believe I could take an easier degree and get a first. I fail to see why I wouldn't think that.
Well if it makes you feel better to say it then more power to you, but it comes across as very arrogant.

How strange then that the majority of high end management is held by those with maths/chemistry/history/law/english. Maybe its because they happened to be the degree's attracting the more intelligent people as a general trend. Maybe their degree's are significantly harder than others and thus prove their abilities greater and like I said, in management a cv is also super critical so the degree is not everything.
Well you have kind of hit the nail on the head for me there. A degree is not everything. Infact it's just a small slice of the pie. Taking a traditional subject will be beneficial, but lets not be overly bold with saying certain degrees are factually 'better' or 'harder' than others, because it's massively sweeping.
 
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I'm glad someone else here is actually speaking sense instead of mindlessly trying to defend poor choices of degrees. I presume it is because they do them.

Why the hatred of social sciences degrees? Mine has allowed me to meet and work for a former US President, meet two current heads of state and live in foreign countries while getting paid.
 
But what do you mean, train you better than others? A science degree isn't going to necessarily make you better at presenting your ideas in a meeting, or more approachable, or anything really. Except, you know, amazing p1000 or nematode skills.

Seens as I mentioned 3 non science and 2 science based degrees for the most popular degrees held in management I think it's clear I am not saying you need science for it. My the whole point was I was saying that buisness/management degrees do not put you anywhere near high up management and you are more likely to be managing a store .

Well if it makes you feel better to say it then more power to you, but it comes across as very arrogant.

I don't disagree it could be considered an arrogant statement but likewise if a formula 1 driver said he would come first significantly more oftern in races if he raced in pro league you wouldn't say he was arrogant. It's just stepping down the difficulty.

Well you have kind of hit the nail on the head for me there. A degree is not everything. Infact it's just a small slice of the pie. Taking a traditional subject will be beneficial, but lets not be overly bold with saying certain degrees are factually 'better' or 'harder' than others, because it's massively sweeping.

Your degree does still make a difference. My dad employs people for a team he runs in HSBC. Anyone who took anything with "studies" (e.g media studies) in it at a level is usually crossed off the list straight away unless they have a particularly good cv because those subjects do not attract intelligent people generally. Your choices have impacts.

How can you possibly argue that certain degrees arn't better than others. Are you honestly going to tell me a law degree is not better than a buisness degree? or a medical degree is not better than a computer studies degree? Have you been to uni and if so what did you study?

The work load between these degrees is monumental. My maths degree is 40 hours a week. Many other subjects are between 15-20 hours a week. I'm sure the workload of medicine/law etc is similar. Infact my sister did dentistry and her workload was so much greater than others that they get half the holidays off which other degrees get.

So no, not all degrees are equal. If they were you would probably see at least 50% of uni students dropping out compared to now if they were all on the same difficulty level as the top ones.

It makes me very angry how so many people have the attitude that it doesn't matter what degree you take. They feed so many people into uni and into dead end jobs and debt as a result. Teachers are particularly bad for this. Though interesting, the chemistry teachers in my school were very practical about what they advised.


Oh I just remembered, geography is another good one.
 
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Why the hatred of social sciences degrees? Mine has allowed me to meet and work for a former US President, meet two current heads of state and live in foreign countries while getting paid.

Sounds like a very engaging job. But most of the people who take social sciences do not get those jobs.

Out of curiosity, what is your job?
 
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