Is a question I am sure you are all familiar with if you are currently in school.
Having elected to take Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Further Maths at A Level, other than the fact that those A Levels would allow me to study something "sciencey" at university, I had absolutely no clue what to apply for through UCAS come the first term of year 12. Fast forward to the summer holidays of year 12 and I had, by then, decided to study Chemistry. So how on earth did that happen? This blog post will address this and hopefully it’ll give you some pointers to help you decide what university course to apply for through UCAS if you’re currently stuck!
When I first started sixth form, my schedule was filled to the brim with extra curricular activities. I regretted signing up for so many things back then, since some of the activities seemed rather useless. But in reality, looking back at everything, those were the ones that helped me narrow down my degree choices...
Therefore...
ACTION TIP #1 : sign up for a range of extracurricular activities at the start of year 12 (as you won’t have as much time spare later on to do so) - you may be surprised by what you end up liking / not liking !
Also, during the first term of year 12, my school offered us a discount on a one year magazine subscription for the Biology Review and the Chemistry Review - so I subscribed to both Reviews. By the end of the year, I had only read one of the Biology Reviews but had finished all of the Chemistry Reviews. This showed me a degree that focused more on chemistry and less on biology would be ideal, as I seemed to find chemistry more interesting.
Therefore...
ACTION TIP #2 : read around your A Level subjects in your spare time. E.g. books from the VSI series, Hodder Education Review magazines + subject specific blogs (e.g. Compound Interest for Chemistry)
Later on in the year, I took part in the Peterhouse Cambridge essay competition. I spent a good solid number of hours researching around my essay question “What are NMR ring currents and why are they useful?” I was really intrigued by NMR in general and ended up researching stuff which had nothing to do with what the question was asking. I also did a presentation on “The effect of free radicals on ageing” during one of my Medics’ club meetings near the end of the year. Just by gravitating towards topics that I enjoyed, I noticed by the start of the summer holidays that they all shared one major thing in common - they were all Chemistry topics!
Therefore...
ACTION TIP #3 : make yourself do research around a topic which you may study in the future as part of a potential university degree. You can do this by e.g. taking part in an essay competition, basing a school presentation on a topic of interest, or watching documentaries which revolve around the subject.