Help me decide - please

[PracticingProgrammer]

Hey guys, i am about to end my GCSE's and i am going to sixth form to do 'A' levels. we have up to four choices and basically i want to choose the esential subjects for uni.

so far i have,

a level maths/mechanics
a level ICT
a level business studies - not relevant but would like to do it.

these i can not decide, a level physics or a level chemistry
-will physics really be esential at uni for computer science or other programming courses. by the way, most subjects i have a/b in GCSE level.

please help me. decide on what will be best as i know no programmers and am walking in the dark! :(

[LzqpfSEw]

I am in the EXACT same situation as you!

First of all: Does your school have a careers advisor, if so then go talk to him/her they will REALLY help you.

If not then I can regurgitate some of the information that I have accumulated.

First of all I'm getting the same grades as you at GCSE (Couple A* some As some Bs).

Now because of this you want to aim for a high university: A Russell Group university, that's our Ivy League (http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/) go check out some of the universities that are there since this is where you want to be (and will probably end up) going.

I was informed that 'core' subjects will help you get into these universities. A university in the top 20 will turn you down for computer science if you studied performing arts and history at A-level - They're unrelated and unimportant for computer science!

These core subjects are: Geography, Science (Physics, Chem, Bio), Mathematics (and further mathematics), any language, History and English.

As for the subjects you've chosen: They're OK but we should revise them:

Mathematics: You MUST do mathematics if you're aiming high.
ICT - No no no! ICT is different from computing! In ICT you'll learn how to word process and perform tasks in spreadsheets - Choose COMPUTING instead!
Business studies - OK, but it's not one of our core subjects, think about changing it (but please don't do something you hate at A-level!)
Physics - You said it yourself, you'll never be doing computer science without physics.


I hope I helped! :)

[PracticingProgrammer]

thanks for your help so much. i feel a lot more confident about choosing. I will see my career advisor some time. but, i wanted to you guys. because most of you do what i want to do. But regarding the ICT - yeah, it's aload of crap i have a A* at gcse because it's simple things like spreedsheets. i might consider the core subjects more then. like, maths, chem, and physics as they ar my favorite and best subjects. once again thanks for your help!

[JokerDan]

You want to be a programmer? Depending on what field, games, software and so on there are different choices that will be more beneficial. Here are the main ones though;

Maths
English
Science - Physics

These are core to get into most careers... I am at a college doing a games programming design course where i do C++, Java and some Python scripting, i suppose im a bit lucky that i didn't have to take the A level route...

[helios]

Well, I don't know what the admission requirements are in the UK, but you definitely don't need any physics to do CS. Maybe to get into CS due to bull requirements, but not to do it.

[1vRz3TCk]

Well, I don't know what the admission requirements are in the UK, but you definitely don't need any physics to do CS. Maybe to get into CS due to bull requirements, but not to do it.

It is just to show 'scientific' thinking for a science degree. The poor state^* of computing based A levels generally means they don't bother with them much as an indicator.

* by this I mean that there are vast differences in the teaching standards/curriculum of ITC and alike across the country.