Choosing A Levels can be hard. Often at 16 we have no idea what we want to be when we emerge in the big wide world, and having to narrow ten subjects down to four when you don’t know where you’re going with them can be a real hassle.
On top of this, some schools can be really helpful when you’re choosing your subjects, but other times you can suffer as a result of bad advice in such an important decision.
Bad advice
When choosing my A Levels, I pretty much knew that I wanted to study English. My school offered an English Literature A Level and an English Language and Literature A Level. At the time I thought that Literature and Language would be my best option, possibly because it was a broader subject and I thought this would be more useful.
At the time I chose my A Levels, I hadn’t done much in the way of degree research, so I didn’t realise that most English courses at the sorts of universities I was looking at were Literature courses that specifically required a Literature A Level. In the end, it wasn’t a massive setback, as the places I applied for accepted me with this A Level on the grounds that I had done lots more wider reading.
However, the situation could have turned out a lot worse for me, and having someone to tell me in so many words that language and literature is considered a “softer” A Level course than literature on its own would have been incredibly helpful.
Political correctness gone crazy
The problem is that in the education sector, a fog of political correctness mires how we can talk about subjects or academic institutions. I found that when confronted directly, the teachers at my school were unwilling to tell me which subjects were considered “soft”. In fact, the Russell Group itself, quite clearly an elitist grouping of universities, won’t call academic subjects what they are, instead preferring the term “facilitating subjects”.
I’ve heard really frustrating stories about people choosing the wrong A Level subjects because people are avoiding telling them straight-up that they will never get to university to do what they want to do without this, this and this.
One person I know of really wanted to do a Natural Sciences at university, but she chose Maths, Further Maths, Physics and German. For Natural Sciences you are usually required to have done three sciences at A Level, so as a result she is now applying to study German instead, not her first choice.
Get an honest opinion
The realm of higher education is a difficult terrain to navigate, but I’ll offer you what little advice I can. It will be boring and seem unnecessary at the time, but shortlist some of the degrees you think you might like to do and check out the course requirements on various university websites.
Ask people other than your teachers, who can sometimes be unwilling to be brutally honest, and someone other than your parents, who have a tendency to be a little biased. Even talking to some of your friends’ parents about their opinion and to see if they have any helpful experience could be invaluable.
On a final note, if you really don’t know what you want to do, it can be helpful to at least choose whether you want to take a science path or a humanities path. Once you have made this choice, you can then make broad subject choices: I did History, English, Latin and French. Although I knew I wanted to study English, I still had the choice of applying for Classics, History, French, even Law, so I never felt like I was tied into one degree option.
Do you think you need honest opinions to choose good A Level options? Let us know in the comments below.
Photo: CollegeDegrees360 / Flickr
I’m an Editorial Manager with an English Literature degree from Warwick University. I love writing about travel, careers, and vegan baking. For more info and to get in contact about freelance writing opportunities, visit http://www.samanthahopps.co.uk/
Leave a Reply