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Further education

You'll find discussions about A Levels and universities on our Further Education forum.

Original poster

How is Drama considered as an A-level?

58 replies

Brogues · 12/10/2022 20:22

DD wants Drama as one of her A-level choices. Both me and her dad are STEM graduates and middle aged/boring with it so Drama is a bit artsy for us and we don’t know how it is considered by universities.

She wants to do History and English Lit with it and these are her top scoring (predicted 8/9) subjects at GCSE. She doesn’t know what career she wants to do and is involved in school drama groups and a youth theatre group outside of school.

Any advice? Should we let her follow her heart on this or is it a pointless A-level in terms of progressing to a degree course?

OP posts:
TimetoGoTed · 12/10/2022 20:42

Of course it's not pointless. For a start many people go in to study theatre or drama as a subject in its own right at BA level, or - shock horror - go into acting training.

Those that don't pursue drama degrees still find Drama A'Level an incredibly rich choice to support their understanding of world events, different periods in history, cultural and social contextualisation - all of which fits perfectly with her other two choices.

In addition to the academic side of Drama, the acting training is beneficial for anyone moving into any kind of front facing jobs - eg teaching, Law, project management etc.

Lottsbiffandsmudge · 12/10/2022 20:40

Theres a lot of essay writing and analysis v like eng lit.... its not the easy subject some think it is. Like all the creative subjects!
DS1 did Art , bio and chem
DS2 is doing music, bio, chem and maths
Both found/ are finding the arts subjects the hardest
Not one uni has said they look unfavourably on the creative subjects.
Let her do what she loves. It's a slog otherwise.

Tarrarra · 12/10/2022 20:37

I did drama at A Level, and it’s not all performing! There’s watching and reviewing performances and also essays on the play scripts as well. It does go well with English lit.

Abra1t · 12/10/2022 20:36

My daughter did drama along with biology and chemistry. She is in her last year at medical school and nobody ever questioned the drama A level.

The communication skills learned are very useful if you want to be a doctor.

DaisyWaldron · 12/10/2022 20:33

That's a good set of A-levels for a degree in literature, history, politics, law etc, showing that she can be creative, practical, confident and work as part of a team as well as being analytical.

EmilyBrontesaurus · 12/10/2022 20:32

It depends what she wants to do in the future. I don't think it's sneered at. I went to quite an academic grammar school and it was offered at gcse and a level.

EggbertHeartsTina · 12/10/2022 20:28

My parents stopped me pursuing drama as GCSE (so not quite the same) and I’m still pissed off about it.

titchy · 12/10/2022 20:26

Goes great with Lit! Good combination there. Won't be a problem for unis at all.