DP has just declared that A'levels are harder than a degree.

[supersop60]

And that's what employers are looking for.
AIBU to think he's a twit?

my degree was harder than my 3 A levels (which i found easy)

I found science A-levels v challenging and I got a 2.1 from a respected red brick Russel Group in Biology. I wouldn't necessarily say harder, but much more sink or swim. You can chose modules that suit you at Uni.

I didn't revisit second year A-level Chemistry until I was doing my final year project. And I was required to develop course work in upper sixth for science A-levels I didn't have revisit the skills for until second year of my degree course, for example.

GCSEs nowadays are much harder since the new syllabus was introduced (Grades 9-1). A lot of the A level content was moved down to GCSE. Therefore, I reckon the jump from GCSE to A level for current students is not so big a jump as olden days . Plus at A level you study fewer subjects (3) and subjects you choose which are are good at.

I studied physics all the way up to post-grad and I actually found a levels hardest - the pressure was the worst. Chemistry exams were the accumulation of 2 years of knowledge, whereas undergrad exams are split into modules and represent 3 months of learning and my one postgrad exam was open book.

Your skills progress as you advance so the difficulty didn't change for me - but things become less right/wrong as you become more specialised and less is truly known - this is the difficult bit. It's a bit scary when you become an "expert" in your narrow field and have no one left to ask what the correct answer is.

I do understand what he means.

Back in the day when you actually had to be a high achiever to obtain a place at University and be able to have your first course choice I was pleasantly surprised when I landed at a top notch University and pretty much breezed through .

It was a LOT of work but not a hard as school. Maybe this was because my course was in the subjects I actually excelled in at school. Maths, Science, Biology. etc.

I'd say advanced maths A level is probably harder than a drama degree

And you would certainly be wrong in saying that. Try looking into what a drama degree actually involves.

I have A-Levels, a degree, a Master’s and I’m part way through a PhD and I tend to agree. I HATED A-Levels! Worst provision ever!

My degree (Oxbridge) much harder than A levels. It was in a subject that I was passionate about but involved a lot of independent work and intellectual rigour. Hugely enjoyed it. A levels weren’t as complex. The pressure to succeed was there which was stressful but a level content definitely wasn’t.

TBH I found it a steeper jump from GCSEs to A-level than A-Level to a degree and I was doing Physics. The big thing about the degree was that you aren't a big fish in a small pond though - some people don't ge over that.

A levels are harder usually as you do multiple subjects and you usually hate most of them.

Degree is usually less broad and something you actually care about.

I work in HE and that’s broadly what our students find. But employers want both. And increasingly a postgrad too.

I found A Level English Literature harder than my English degree. I think it is the difference in the structure, the degree was more enjoyable because I wasn't stuck reading the same few texts for a whole term.

I understand what he means.

I found my GCSEs enormously harder than any subsequent degree or qualification. I hated being spread so thin over subjects (and I only did 9, and it amazes me that these days some students come out with 11 or 12!). I struggled a lot. My A Levels were easier because I got to choose the subjects. My degree was also easier. And my postgrad degrees were certainly, enormously easier.

It isn't only about the rigour of the subject. Incidentally, when I did Italian GCSE during my A Level year, I found it a piece of piss. I'd done French after five laborious years being very well-drilled, and my spoken French was much, much, much better than my very basic Italian. But the actual exam process had become so much less frightening, so the Italian didn't worry me. I think fear of the exam process/general growing up is a big issue here.

I found my degree harder but alevels a lot more pressure.

For me my degree was much harder

I think I could go back and do my A-levels with my eyes closed, chemistry, biology and psychology so not really tough subjects but not easy ones either.

Oh, and I've a friend who did an English Lit degree - and struggled, despite coming out with a decent result (I forget if it was 2:1 or 1, but it was good) - and then retrained to do medicine. He did excellently, having found GCSE science really hard and having thought at 16 that he couldn't possibly be a doctor.

Sometimes, early results really do cloud your perspective on what you're good at and what you're not.

A levels were technically a lot easier but the work load was massive and I didn’t sleep for about 3 months.

As you get more experience of independent study and exams you learn how to learn better. You take transferable skills you learnt at a-level and apply them studying for your degree. That is why a degree can seem easier at the time than a levels even though a 16 year old wouldn’t be able to do it. It would be a massive jump to go from GCSEs to degree.

After I did my degree I did the law conversion course which is basically two years of a law degree in one year. It was pretty easy, but it wouldn’t have been had I done it straight out of school.

I really hate it when people speculate about the difficulty of a degree they have never done though. I know how hard my degree is, but I don’t know how hard a Drama degree or an Engineering degree is because I haven’t done one.

A-levels much harder than degree. I have a 2.1 in Biology (ex poly but one of the top 3 for life sciences when I went). The jump from GCSE to A-level was ridiculous.

I think there's a distinction to be made between 'hard' and 'rigorous', @TheMarzipan?

I'd say that judging what's 'hard' involves taking into account the individual who's studying and their context.

I guess it depends on the degree and what sort of skills the inidividual has.

My degree was definitely harder (Medicine) compared to 4 A levels. We had a learn a massive amount of content to learn and had much less teaching support than I had at school.

Your DP is talking nonsense about employers looking for A levels instead of a degree (assuming degree level job).

er, no! A Levels are a piece of piss compared to degree at a decent uni.
Like night and day.

My STEM degree was high workload but much easier intellectually than my 4 STEM A-levels.