Mumsnet Talk

Or should dd do both?

What does she enjoy most? Does she want to do both?

She likes geog much more, but is concerned that academically she should do both

No need to do both. DS considered doing both but in the end went for History and Drama and he is so glad he picked Drama as he just loves it. He has a long list of "academic" gcses so I'm glad he has something that's assessed in a different way.

You have to be careful with History because it's such a wide subject. A friend's DC likes history as in 'mediaeval'. My DS likes history as in 'modern'. They would each hate to study the other's idea of history.
Check the syllabus carefully.

Geography all the way for me, but I am biased.

Geography (my degree subject so I am very biased) its a wonderful subject covering everything history economics sustainable development environmental issues and well as the obvious rivers coastal processes etc but even these can be applied to the 21st century flooding etc. it is also a highly regarded degree subject.

As a completely biased Geography teacher - I'm with happygardening - I love my subject and constantly find it ways to be relevant to the students' lives that I teach.
Having said that my best advice to all my year 9 classes is to do the subject that you enjoy. That will be the one that you are more prepared to work at, that you won't mind sitting and doing extra work for while your mates are out somewhere and ultimately will be the one that you succeed in.

oh and you can always find something relevant to watch on the Eden channel and pretend it's revision.

thanks all!

geog it is.

another convert to the cause. Geography rocks!

Absolutely geography rocks

Just to add, I went to my DD's options evening and was amazed to discover that the history syllabus appeared to start in 1908! That wasn't really what I had in mind when she said she wanted to do history... definitely look at the syllabus!

another geography graduate here!

the historians must all be hiding :-)

DD opted for both. Her History is 20th century - I find it really interesting - it includes civil rights, cold war, vietnam, WW2.

Dd is probably doing both, we thought it might be less confusing than two languages, which is the other option.

Another geography teacher here. Clearly biased. But I did both at GCSE and was very tempted by history at A Level. My spec was a modern history one and it was brilliant.

Geog degrees are really flexible - I have many geog graduate friends who have made their fortune in the city (oh why oh why didn't I do that??), others work in development, others are in publishing, town planning, law, accountancy etc.

I think the advantages of geog at any level are that it is unique in combining high levels of literacy with good levels of numeracy ie you have to be able to look at a table of stats (e.g one showing river velocities and cross sectional areas or one showing development data) and make judgments, backed up by facts. No other subject does that.

And that's what makes goegraphers so employable - transferrable skills galore.

Off my soap box now to cook tea...(currently SAHM, wasn't considering going back to work anytime soon until now....! sniffs wistfully...)

I'd say look at the specification.
DS1 who is in Y11 is doing geography, to his regret. The workload is huge, although a lot is controlled assessments which if Michael Gove has his way will cease to exist in a couple of years. And much of the specification is very boring (that's my perception, I wouldn't say it out loud to DS).
DS2 about to choose options and I think he is going to do both in spite of his brother's experience.

Another one to just remind that history syllabuses are very different. Our GCSE and A levels are very 20th century based. DD1 now at uni and rolling like a pig in much in the ancient history part of the course- greco roman to medieval. She loves it

Geography is only boring because its badly taught.

I'm hoping for geog as ds (a yr above) is doing history (mod) and I can't face it twice. He didn't do geog so at least it will be a bit new!

Disagree about the boring geography. They seem to do little about the world and a lot about wind farms. DS says it's easy though.
DS2 is looking forward doing History though as always it seems to be about WWII.

ds doing both; loves the history, tolerates the geography, as he says it's too much climate change and God help you if you don't adhere to the prevailing orthodoxy about global warming.

He will be doing history at A level.

Asinine I did three foreign languages for GCSE and loved it. Would have hated to study history although now find social history programmes fascinating the syllabus that was taught at my school was dull.
I did Geography, and did very well but had an excellent teacher at the beginning of secondary school where I learned loads and one I liked much less for the GCSE course. Studied a lot of phyisical geography which I enjoyed so again it's about the syllabus I think.

I would say History, it carries weight and it's the very good GCSE to have IME.
It shows roundedness and aptitude for assimilation of facts and historical events, but as somebody up the tread pointed out it is a vast subject containing a big volume of material that needs to be revised over and over so to retain important accuracy of events and dates.
DS did History, he loves the subject and gained A* last year, all his other A level subjects are science based so in his case perhaps History was not necessary, but he wanted to do it, and in the words of his teacher who taught him History for prep, for GCSE "History is a strong subject on any application form, it is good to have it"
Good luck

History so much depends on the period being studied - geog is much wider.

Is it too early to know what a levels subjects or degree subject you might be heading for? For science, geog might fit better, for languages or English, history might be a better fit.

But nothing wrong in doing both either - it depends what else has to be dropped