The unofficial guide to choosing A levels (hey, it worked for ScotGirl) (Choosing A-Levels in general)

Name: rabidsquirrel

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Product:	Choosing A-Levels in general
Date:	26/11/01 (198 review reads)
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Advantages: You can't get into university without it

Disadvantages: Difficult, Time-consuming

I have no idea why I am writing this. I suppose I'm a bit bored. I've got a couple of hours to fill, and I cannot be arsed to do anything useful. The chances are, this opinion will get about three reads and will earn me a grand total of 9p. If I'm lucky. The reason for this is quite simple really. The only people who would be interested in reading an opinion like this are people about to choose their A levels, and even then, most of them have better things to do with their time than read somebody's opinion on choosing A levels. Right. That's just insulted all of you who have stumbled across this opinion, so we'll begin.

MY GUIDE TO CHOOSING A LEVELS
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So, you're hoping that you'll get good GCSE results, are you? Hoping that one day, you'll get offered a place at a good university where you can pursue your career as a forensic scientist? Well, I've got one thing to tell you. You're a failure! You're going to fail all of your GCSEs, you'll end up working as a cleaner at Tesco's, your debts will increase, you'll end up spending all your money financing a crack addiction, and eventually you'll end up on the streets without hope of any kind of future. You take yourself to the top of a multi-storey car park, and you hurl yourself off it. Game over. End of story.

Now that I've depressed you a bit, let me tell you that taking A levels ain't a walk in the park. It requires a lot of hard work and effort, so if you can't be bothered with that, then don't bother with taking A levels. Get a rubbish qualification like a GNVQ (sorry, they're called something stupid like vocational A levels now, aren't they). So here is your first choice. Do you take A levels or not? My advice is, if you're good enough, then I strongly recommend that you take them. Even the easiest A levels (media studies, officially, is the easiest
A level to pass) carry a lot more weight when it comes to future careers than other qualifications, which are potentially harder to pass.

This is not to say that A levels are easy. Far from it. Of course, some subjects are easier than others, but don’t expect physics and maths A levels to be a piss in the park. Right now, my advice is that you should take any subject that you did particularly well at in GCSE, or one that you think is quite easy, especially if you are looking at getting into a good university. My reason for that is because unless you are aiming to do a medicine degree or something similar, universities do not care about what A levels you actually have so long as you have A levels, and A levels with reasonable grades. There are, of course, exceptions. Medicine and veterinary science require you to take all science subjects for A level, and many science subjects require you to have at least one or two science orientated subjects at A level. And of course, if you want to do a degree in a language like French, then it would be useful if you had a French A level in order that they know you can actually speak French. They’re pedantic like that, you see.

So, take subjects that you are good at. Also, do not take subjects that you think sound interesting, because to a large extent, they are neither interesting nor particularly useful. I nearly made the mistake of choosing film studies for A level a couple of years ago, opting instead for English (which was an equally large mistake – I have since dropped that subject). It may sound interesting, just watching films during your lessons, but the reality is that the subject is extremely boring. You may have to watch a particular scene of a film twenty times or more – each time analysing how camera angles have been used in creating the atmosphere of the film, what production techniques have been used, etc. etc. etc. In short, many films that you have watched and loved befo
re have the donkey’s arse kicked out of them so that you hate them afterwards. And there is also the fact that universities don’t see the subject as particularly useful anyway. If you want to study a film related subject at degree level, no university will ask for an A level in film studies as an entry requirement. This also applies to subjects as academically-based as psychology, which I am studying at the moment. While universities will require A levels to study psychology, few will require that you have studied psychology at A level. This is partly because not all students will have had a chance to study such subjects at their local sixth-form which would make such entry requirements unfair on students who have been unable to study such subjects, and partly because what you are taught at A level in a certain subject amounts to a bucket of water taken from the Atlantic Ocean of what you are taught at university.

Two other tips:
1. Choose subjects that you have at least got a bit of an interest in, otherwise you’ll end up dreading every lesson of that particular subject you chose just to fill up the options form given to you by your local college. Your grades in that subject will be lower as well.
2. Don’t choose you're A levels under the influence of alcohol or any illegal substances, as one of my friends did. He is failing A level accounting because it is, predictably, the most boring A level in the history of mankind. But he chose that subject, and he knows why. Because he got high, because he got high, because he got high.

Sorry.

A levels are probably the most intense section of your educational life, and therefore, if you choose the wrong subjects, you will end up on an downward spiral towards oblivion. So think about it before you choose them, why don’t you?

And don’t go thinking that this is the end of the opinion.











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Screw you. There, I’ve said it.

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