That is my dilemma, am I sure I want to be an engineer? Once I have chosen I cannot turn back. The other thing to consider is subjects, obviously if you want to be an engineer, you do not then do English, Religious Studies and Art. "Choosing subjects, not a problem then?" I hear you cry. Wrong. Not only do you have to think about the subjects themselves, you also have to think about combinations, back-up subjects and what universities look for - that is, if you want to go to university. There we go again, another big decision that once again boils down to what A Levels you take. Teachers and parents say, "Try to cover all the bases for universities", but surely, different universities look for different things? If you covered all the subject bases for all the universities looked for at A Level and which schools did what, where in the country. You would be considering 4,000 sixth forms, 5,000 colleges and be taking 5 million subjects at A Level. Realistically, covering all the bases at A Level is simply not feasible.
Maybe I am just overreacting. Maybe it is a lot simpler than I thought. Maybe I need to consider the benefits and disadvantages of each subject, look briefly at the combinations which are good and go with the flow. It sounds way to straight forward to be true though, but I will give it a go, it's only my whole life...
Hey! Thought I'd follow you here from Twitter. This was an eloquent, thoughtful post (even if it made me feel old).
ReplyDeleteTrying to get the A Levels I wanted turned into a bit of a fiasco, to the point where I got pulled into Mrs Gwatkin's office for her to explain to me that I could not do Drama by myself. Proved her very wrong.
For me, Drama was the thing I had to do if I wanted to do it at uni - not because my uni required me to do it, but because I had to know I was certain about Drama before choosing it as a degree. And now it's hopefully going to be my career. So choose the A Level that you need, whether that's to get onto your course or to just help you make sure you want to be on that course, and definitely choose at least one thing besides that just because you love doing it!
I handed in my A Level choices last week and seriously considered having my photo taken with the letter in hand. It was such a big decision, a milestone in a student's life. I agree with Emily, if you have an idea about the course you want to take at Uni, you have to pick the sensible options which will get you onto that course. Any free spaces left over and you pick something you enjoy, but it has to be related.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I want to be a chartered engineer, who designs, creates, invents. I'd like to go into chemical engineering or materials, so my choices are physics, chemistry, maths and further maths (the last one is particularly because it helps with physics). These three subjects I love and do well in, so I'm pretty sorted.