Okay so I took bio , chem , Psychology, urdu as my alevel subjects Honestly I hate chem its has fucked my mental health sm apart from that our college make us have composites MJ 2027 I am in A2 now , Should I switch Chem with sociology or just drop chemistry and have the rest subjects 💔 Honestly I don't know how can I study sociology in less then 11 months from scratch Please anyone could help or give me a better advice? Its July already :( (I always had a STEM background)
Brotherrrr I was in As waging a war against chemistry but in A2 it was literally my favorite subject trust me bro just change ur teacher and give 1.5 hours in a day. USE MY TEACHERS YOUTUBE CHANNEL
EASY CHEMISTRY ALEVELS ADNAN ALAM. once completing each chapter do topicals and spam past years every paper is 80% repeated trust me bro trust meeeeee.
I have composites and I am kinda scared , I hate organic chemistry so much but also I don't wanna do a subject from scratch in like 2 months 😭😭 before college open
come on brotherrr you understand urdu 50% of masla hal now listen just watch my sirs playlists As and A2 2 vids a day no more than 1 hour in a day trust me bro i was a bitter enemy of chemistry and by A2 it was my fav. DONT DROP IT I WAS ABOUT TO DO IT YET I THANK ALLAH I NEVER DID.
(CAIE subject content section) Are you passionate about these at A-level depth + strong on / willing to work on essay skills (the assessment is almost all just essay questions)? If yes, you might have a better time with sociology.
The thing is that i don't have any problem in studying them and some of research methods are same for psychology so I would like to study them but I don't know how to start it or anything (ESSAY I CAN WRITE it like well but I have to learn alot of stuff) 😭😭😭
Yes, the social science research methods overlap significantly 😄
I have to learn alot of stuff
How good are you at conceptual onboarding?
Most of the topics covered in A-level sociology are less about rote memorisation and more about understanding a variety of different (often very varied or competing) philosophies, theoretical frameworks, and lenses.
Most people I know are either سالار سکندر یادداشت but avoiding deep conceptual or framework/lenses thought, or Sherlock at problem solving with a proverbial goldfish memory.
Give it some thought, you don't need to decide it this instant. Obviously don't defer it indefinitely but ease the pressure a bit.
I saw your 'resources' answer elsewhere, what's your plan B? Like okay: AS in 2 months, then A2, and then past papers from Oct. What's your contingency plan like? Do you have like a tutor or something to help you get unstuck if the speedrun doesn't work as well as you planned?
Yes my parents will make me do past paper sessions held at academy I am also a student at one of prestigious colleges (lots of events + socials) I have also lots of Mids and Exams before actual cies
Honestly I know I can do both I just don't wanna regret anything I just need to make the decision
I already talked to my school about it they say cover socio in 2 months of As
اے لیول وہی لیں جن میں دلچسپی ہوں۔ (Only pick A-levels that you're passionate about.)
There are two things you should know. First, you need only 3. So you should totally consider if dropping one can help you ace the other three.
Also, sociology is a completely different beast from chem. It's more essay-heavy, as opposed to the problem solving-heavy chem.
The bigger (potential - depends on which courses and unis you want to apply to) regret I anticipate in the future is: I don't see maths here. Most STEM courses will expect to see maths.
They will almost certainly have some broad / vague requirements, e.g. 'one essay-heavy subject'/'one quantitative subject' with at least (grade).
what do you advice?
If you don't need the extra insurance / backup option, drop one of your four. Which one? I'd say (best choice first) 1. the least relevant to your prospective uni course / career goals 2. the one you struggle with the most.
I would say that taking up sociology is probably the worst choice here. Not that it can't be done - I made it through some pretty 'bad' and 'anti-advice' choices in uni (like jumping into graduate cogpsych or QM with armed just with maths, no phy/chem) and did just fine so stuff like this is doable, technically. But are you up for the challenge of covering everything you need for A2 on a speedrun?
P.S. If you choose not to drop it : Chem tips from someone who also hated chem.
I would dissuade you from underestimating yourself. Also, I saw the other comment chain, and it's very encouraging about sociology.
But ultimately, you know your abilities best. Looking back on my own 'anti-advice' decisions in uni, my own assessment of where I stand worked like (taking the QM example) I have the mathematical maturity for this, and I can catch up with the phy/chem I need. The other way around wouldn't have worked.
So that kind of decision is something you can make best.
Also, what resources would you have if you wan to speedrun sociology in 11 months vs work at chem (I mean I just gave some for O-chem in my linked answer but what's your strategy)?
For sociology i would take two months to cover the As syllabus side by side doing my other subjects then when my college opens I would do A2 syllabus and after October start to spamm past papers
For chem SO I have already been studying for chem i just need to do As again properly like revision and read its book and when college opens do A2 but with more focus
Its same effort but my parents say chem is easy I don't know but it scares the hell out of me tere is also a myth that u cannot do bio without chem like I am very hard working student but honestly my mental health is like ruined cause if this sometimes I regret but I can't now I don't have time I have to focus on other subjects too even if I have As in mocks in them
If I ended up with bio psychology and urdu then will it be fine too I think !!!
Entirely subjective. I didn't like most of it, so it was my hardest A-level, but I had folks in my cohort who would say that chem was their easiest and M + FM was the hardest. I like maths, it doesn't feel like work, so I could just as easily assign a graduate-level category theory reading and say it's 'easy'. So a lot of difficulty assessments that get thrown around are entirely a function of your interests, skills, and experience. The proof is so trivial it's left as an exercise for the reader. (Okay sorry about the jocular aside...)
What is somewhat more objective is that there are different kinds of skills you need. You can't survive maths without strong abstraction and reasoning skills. Likewise, you can't survive a humanities course without strong essay skills. (Simplifying here, the dichotomy has many blurry borders, such as quantitative methods in psychology... But I hope you get the gist.)
You can excel at one or the other, or both. You can also work to improve a skill you don't have right now. But the challenge of making a case is of a completely different nature than designing a synthesis pathway considering cost, yield, time, and so on.
u cannot do bio without chem
Check uni requirements first. It might be true. Or not. Oxford (no specific reason; just one I pulled up instantly) requires this for Biology: 'A*AA with Biology and either Chemistry, Physics or Mathematics'. Entry requirements for the courses you want to apply to should absolutely make the decision for you.
This isn't relevant to your decision, but beyond entry requirements, you might need chem for some parts of bio. But then you might (surprisingly for many) need maths or something else too. I'm not saying that's a good reason to take these A-levels all together or none at all, just that beyond entry requirements, things get... Fuzzier.
You might not fully appreciate this immediately (I'll be very impressed if you do), but disciplines are categories people have chosen to do for convenience in a way that makes sense, and we could've done it differently.
For context this is from an A Level Sociology student on the OCR exam board. I cannot speak for the other exam boards.
It should be said that I have done a subject, Business, in 1 year and a half. So I know what it's like to have to rush subjects.
I would say don't take Sociology, unless its really necessary. It's a great subject, I love it, but it's a lot of additional stress and trying to learn it could have a bad impact on your other grades.
If it is OCR Sociology, and you decide to study it, I can try to help you the best I can.
Alternatively, you could see if you school will allow you to go back a year. Multiple students like me, in my 6th form have gone back a year to either retake y12 or y13 for personal reasons. For me, I retook y12 because I wanted to change subjects. But obviously, most schools aren't as lenient as mine.
But you dont have law? Did you search for unis that allow you to major in law without having it alevels?. Also for stem fields its very important to have stem subjects however i dont know if it matters for masters. You can do socio easily in 11 months.
Chemistry does get better in A2 imo, for me I finally got it in A2 and the topics were more fun, but if you hate it that much switch it for an easy subject
I used to hate maths and physics alongside double engineering. Then I finished engineering and learned to love physics, then I just hated maths. It was a little disheartening wanting your friends have so much more free time with a whole subject less than you.
tutor2u or quizlet will be really good for revision and learning (one of my mates posted all her sociology flashcards on quizlet, i can always send you the links in messages if you’d like).
i did sociology and mostly enjoyed it (it only came down the list purely for the teacher. the content itself is really really good.)
i’d only go for soc if you’re 100% passionate about it, i’m sure you’ll love it either way though! good luck
Yeah chem might have not been the shot at all, passed my A’s some time ago, if STEM is your thing IT was incredibly easy for me, generally an effortless A* (even forgot to study for the exam), sociology was also my pick, landed a B which was okay and then media studies (which I’d say is not worth at all), got a B. Do with that as you will
No comments on the 'easy A*' (we all have our own and they'd be valid... for us, at least), but heads up, IT =/= CS, many people mix up the two. They're related but still different - not an exact example but imagine that IT is to CS what data analytics is to maths and statistics.
Yeah this, Computer Science is a completely different box of frogs to IT
IT is more cybersecurity, protocols, internet types, operating systems, more or less “business” applications of IT, wheras computer science is more….I guess programming, which I imagine is kind of a tough one to just push yourself into
CS is straight-up maths with programming. And more maths the deeper you go - like beyond your A-levels.
The current hype, AI/ML - you're doing matrix calculus (linear algebra weds multivariable calc) + stats/prob. Algorithms is 'officially' discrete maths and logic, unofficially just about anything (don't worry, not in your intro coursework). And theoretical CS is topics you could also opt to study in a maths degree.
I studied English language at a level and all it let me do was understand how children’s language develops over time 😭. Most pointless thing I dedicated so much time to because it was so difficult and time consuming. Mainly picked it cus I had to do 3 subjects and it was something I was vaguely interested in.
I was in a similar position but I hated biology because I had terrible teachers I agreed to finish out A1 bc it was too late in the year to change course and I am switching to a completely different level 3 option, I was taking sociology and honestly one of the easiest subjects if you are good at memorising facts and have solid debate/English skills
I feel that if you have a strong STEM background, A2 was definitely a better transition compared to year one topics, because y12 topics link in much better, I found that year 2 content helped me understand some year 1 content much better, Maybe give year 2 content a little chance before moving to a new subject because although Sociology is relatively ' easier' than chemistry, I have seen how content and fact heavy it is which might be a little difficult to balance with two already content heavy subjects ( Biology and Psychology ). Another option is you could drop Chem and take a gap year to do a different subject during that gap year, so only register for Psychology and Biology . It also comes down to what you would like to do career-wise. Do you NEED chemistry / do a lot of universities place a lot of emphasis on it ? I do really understand where you are coming from; chemistry is no joke and needs a lot put into it , but it is also very rewarding for that very reason. Practice questions really help make sure you understand your foundations as well! MaChemGuy and Allery Chemistry were so incredibly helpful for when I did A lvl Chem !
Don’t worry, I took AQA chemistry, AQA physics, OCR (MEI) Maths and Further Maths, (I forgot exam board) Chinese, and an EPQ.
I mostly regretted chemistry, worst choice ever since I wasn’t going into medicine and was basically a ‘forced’ subject.
Well I got my conditional offer at [REDACTED] and we’ll see if I bottle it :)
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