Phylosophy A'Level: a soft or hard A'level?

I don't know how things are done there now, but when I was a first year undergrad at Bristol if you were doing single honours arts or social science you had to do a certain amount of units outside your subject in your first year. Ample opportunity to switch about - lots of was going on when I was first year.

Thanks for that advice GM. He is predicted higher grades than they ask, so if all goes well I think there might be a good chance he can switch, but too risky to apply for course with 3 places.

Yes, I would recommend he do that. I applied for Philosophy (and got it) - there about 100 places for that. English and Philosophy has 6 places. They created one for me when I got there.

I read Philosophy at uni. TBH I think where's good for philosophy depends on which branch you are most interested in. I specialised in moral and political philosophy, so went where they had plenty of lecturers with similar interests. IIRC King's was the place to go if you were of a more metaphysical bent.

hard

georgimama, DS(1) has been looking at sociology and philosophy degreee at Bristol but found that there are only 3 places given. Because of that he is thinking of applying for just sociology and then possibly trying to switch. Any views appreciated.

DH says St Andrews. He is a bit biased, mind. But it is a cracking place, and a great uni.

I studied Philosophy and English at Bristol University. You can do joint honours (or could) Philo and almost any arts, social science or science subject. I think almost the only joint honours they don't do in it is Philosophy and medicine.

I loved it, and it certainly stood me in good stead when I decided to study law as a post graduate - no one argues with a degree in philosophy .

I would have loved to do PPE at Oxford, but didn't have the confidence in my ability to get through the economics part to apply. I applied for pure Philosophy at Cambridge but got turned down after interview. Send him to look around Bristol, it is a great university.

DS is lovely in many ways, but this whole university thing is not an easy ride for us.

Still, now I know that I have to whip DS2 into shape before we reach this stage!

[respect emoticon]

hey only 6 years to go until ds hits 11

[happy days emoticon]

I agree choosy - but am also having to deal with teenage hormones here ....

BIWI maybe, but why not look at it the other way - if Oxbridge isn't good enough for him, that's fine - but why not have a look at it, if it does the course he wants? If he doesn't like it, then he needn't apply.

Parly because Oxbridge is/are so RICH and these days that really helps - shedloads of books in the library, support, bursaries, all that stuff. I was so when I found out that you have to make a special request for an interlibrary loan at my current uni, which a tutor has to sign off specially; with an arts subject i would always recommend a university with a copyright library so that everything you could want is on site.

will shut up now...

BecauseIAMWI: - Use this as it is the UCAS course selection thingy.....

I was going to suggest Cambridge, one of my year 13s has been looking into courses and she chose Cambridge.

I agree about the marking scheme, but good a level teaching is not about marking schemes. My students get so much from it.

Milliways - thanks for the link. Unfortunately it said it had timed out!

choosy - sadly I don't think DS1 is quite good enough for Oxbridge.

Hard.

TBH A Level is seen by a lot of academic philosophers as a bit pointless as the A level marking scheme has to be really rigid (so the course boring) so there's no scope for interesting ideas. A lot of good philosophers get E's. (Have probably cheered up Meglet )

Philosophy OTOH is a great subject at university, although content of courses differs wildly.

There are many options to put into the UCAS search - too many variations on History (Ancient, Modern, Political, Religious etc etc) so I just choose plain Modern History + Philosophy. Probably, if you do Philosophy + History you get a different set of results

BIWI, Cambridge should also be on that list as you can study Philosophy and History there by taking one as Part I (which will be either 1 or 2 years long) and one as Part II (either 2 or 1 year long!)

Oxford does some joint Philosophy degrees.

I did it, it was bloody hard! I did English and some "ologies" and found Philosophy quite hard at A level. I did go on to study it at university though, it is very interesting.

BecauseIAmWorthIt: List of Uni's offering History/Philosophy degrees

I did philosophy as my first degree at Swansea many many years ago now though. It was four years of bliss. It was an amazing department in those days. I don't know about now though.

As a hijack/aside, DS1 is doing philosophy A level and is interested in doing it at university, as a joint honours with history.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to good universities for either subject?

He has just got a C at AS level, made up of an A for one exam and a D for the other - he will be re-sitting the one he got a D for, so hopefully will improve on that!

I teach Philosophy of Religion ( half of the Philosophy and Ethics course) and the students do find it hard but also very enjoyable. Some of them say it is life changing and many go on to study Philosophy at university.

I ask mine to listen to in our time as well.

I'm studying A Levels as a mature student and alot of the school leavers who have gone into the subject have found it difficult but interesting in the first couple of weeks.

Philosophy 'A' level (by AQA - the only board that offers "Philosophy" 'A' level) is different to Philosophy and Ethics - which is often "Religious Studies". I teach both 'A' levels (and the RS course I teach is philosophy and ethics)

According to a recent study (the Durham Uni one), RS is somewhere in the middle on the difficulty of 'A' levels. It was about the same level of difficulty as English lang and lit I think. Certainly, my students do not find it an easy course. It seems to have a decent level of respectability amongst universities too.

Philosophy (the pure AQA philosophy A level) is harder than the RS philosophy course. The AQA philosophy course is much faster, its covers more topics and the epistemology elements of the course is harder too.
Both are fascinating courses though. HTH