gcse geog or history?

mumslife

ds3 has made the same choice dropped languages as it was french or German and he is no good at languages ( he does Speak Italian though ) .

And yes we have a use trip here in y12 already started saving

I did both at GCSE and A Level (then degree in history) and teach both. Overall (as a student and teacher) geography is easier but duller, whereas history is more academically demanding but much more interesting.

History is also the 'gold standard' of the humanities and respected more at all levels.

However, I do love geographytoo so my advice would be to do both.

USA Davida

DS2 went to Krakow in Y12 - & visited Auschwitz - but it wasn't a history trip as such.

Ds had option of Berlin trip for history y10but they wanted the deposit with 5 days notice so can not go

DD is going to Poland this year (Y10) and USA (Y11) for History, but only Dorset for Geography.

TBF, DSs went to Iceland and somewhere in the UK for Geography, and only the Battlefields for History.

oh he would have loved that, webwiz

especially the getting stuck

Ponders DD2 went to Berlin for a History GCSE trip and she certainly enjoyed it. I'm not sure how much the teachers enjoyed it when they got stuck there thanks to the airport in the UK being shut due to snow!

DS2 did both Geography & History (20th century) at GCSE & then History (20th century again) at A level. He never wanted to do earlier history, but did get a bit tired of Hitler...

I thought Geog had better field trips, Davida (in fact I can't remember him having any for History)

I have always had a soft spot for Geography, perhaps because I failed my 2nd year History exam back in the 70s and have never quite gotten over it.

I feel that history is more high-brow - it suits the artsy/English Lit people more. Geography is a little bit more leaning towards science. History probably has slight better field trips than Geography - more comfortable, physically.

A-level Geography is apparently the easiest traditional academic subject to get an A in.

My eldest kids have done both for GCSE.

ds2 is doing both plus RS as fu gcse and he loves how they all can be tied intogether

DS doing both history and geography. You need to check the syllabus to see what is taught for history - your dd may or may not find the subjects interesting depending on which course your school is covering. Also, they test the ability to interpret sources at gcse on one paper - this is worth 25% of the total gcse and was a real shock to DS (absolutely hates this paper). If they struggle with this technique it can bring down their overall mark. On the other hand, he loves geography - it is classed as a social science so links in well with maths/sciences for AS level, but also works with the "arts" so is a good all round subject to have - wadadlis makes excellent points. History is a good match with English / Languages - does your dd know whether she prefers the arts or sciences ? However, both subjects are good to have so your dd should choose the one she enjoys the most.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Geography is only boring because its badly taught.

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

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 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...)

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