Maths & further maths A levels - any disadvantage to doing both?

[hipposeleven]

My ds is planning to do A levels in maths, further maths, history and psychology. He might drop either psychology or history if he decides it's better to focus on 3.

I wondered whether there's any disadvantage in having both maths and further maths at A level? Would all universities count these as 2 separate A levels? He may do a maths degree, but isn't really decided yet, so I'm worried that he might not be seen as having a broad enough range of subjects if he does three, of which two are maths. Does anyone have any experience of this, particularly any dcs with both maths A levels applying for a non-maths degree?

www.engc.org.uk is the best resource for links to all the engineering institutions that are the professional bodies for engineering. The purple link goes through to them on the web site so have a look. They also list accredited courses. If DS is interested. MEng at university is a higher level course and leads more readily to chartered status. There will be branches of engineering he probably hadn’t thought about.

DH would rather see engineers with common sense and problem solving abilities rather than “computer says yes” types who haven’t thought through the problems at all. Mathematicians certainly don’t always make the best engineers. Understanding what you are trying to solve and being practical certainly should be in the mix. It’s no bad thing to add in Geography A level if he’s interested in environmental engineering.

@hipposeleven

Forgot to say, I'd love to know if anyone has any recommendations of good websites that give suggestions/info on non-school subject degrees, e.g. "if you like maths then have a look at..."

Oxford always used to do a “Lesser-Spotted Sciences” day for people who like maths but don’t think they want to do a maths degree. I don’t suppose it’s on this year, but there might be some interesting information on their outreach pages. (Whether or not one’s considering Oxbridge.)

@hipposeleven

This is all very helpful - thank you. Sorry for not doing individual mentions, but all of the comments have been useful. It's good to have such a range of views and experience.

I'm getting DS to read through this thread and have suggested doing some research on different degree subjects to get a realistic idea of at least a few he might be interested in, and what their entry requirements are, so that he can decide on the best A level combination.

That’s a really good way to look at it - what does he need to do to keep appealing options open?

When my dd3 was his age, she sent off for a couple of uni prospectuses to do that - she and I both found it easier to browse through a book rather than click around on the website.

A few more sites to explore:

www.theuniguide.co.uk/a-level-explorer

• put in A level subject combinations for suggestions for degree courses.

www.ucas.com/undergraduate www.ucas.com/introducing-ucasdiscovery

Thanks again, and sorry for the late reply. I'm going to look through some of these websites with ds when I finish work later. I really appreciate all of your replies and suggestions - I'm sure it will help ds to get a better idea of what he wants to do and be more realistic about how many options he can keep open without closing off others.

I think your main priority is working out if he needs FM. Few courses require it but life is easier if you have it! So try and work out if he’s more interested in economics and management or sciences and engineering. Then look at the top 10 for those subjects. You really don’t need to look at LSE or Imperial or even Oxbridge to get a decent flavour of what the majority expect of applicants. I would also look at his interests. What does he enthuse about? What makes him tick? Happy trawling!

OP, I am going to disagree with the post above. It is not about need, but about enjoyment and aptitude.

If you don't enjoy maths, or have sufficient aptitude you are well advised to stay away from FM, however much you "need" it. Maths is no fun at all if you are struggling.

But the reverse is true as well. If you have and aptitude and enjoy it, FM can be a lot more fun than GCSE. And, with the right aptitude a lot easier and less work than other A levels. And maths is everywhere. Data and computers have made this so. Even if, say, you are a linguist, but with strong maths, there will be a niche around linguistics, computer and language. The same is true for economics and will be for psychology. So it is not about which courses "need" FM, but which subjects you can use maths knowledge in.

This board seems fixated with careers in law and engineering. There are a lot of other avenues, especially for those with strong maths. And indeed the breadth within engineering is huge - just look at the range of courses available at Imperial.

In short it depends how good he is.

If he is good enough he should seriously consider FM as not that many people take it, or indeed are capable of taking it. Unfortunately that is hard to know before you start, though maths teachers often have a view about who has the aptitude as opposed to who works hard or is being tutored. (Tutoring, which is pretty rife across the board, does push kids to the top of the class who otherwise would not be there, which in turn can be demotivating for others.) Part of the problem is that GSCE is pretty dull and unchallenging for a good mathematician, so it is easy for kids to switch off. My DC both started to take off at A level, and I later realised that at GCSE they had never had problems with concepts, but had no motivation to do other than bob along, usually not in the top set, leaving keener kids to compete with each other.

The op said he was considering a maths degree so one assumes he is good and enjoys it.

Further maths had 14,470 entries last summer. German had 2,800.

DS did Maths and Further Maths A Level and is just coming to the end of a Maths degree at a Russell group uni.

I think Further Maths is very helpful if Maths is being considered for a degree.

DS said his first year was much easier as a result.

And it gives you a 4th A level, without being as much work as 2 separate subjects.

@DahliaMacNamara

Agree with *@LadyMacnet*. I'm sure I read somewhere here very recently of a student who had found that having FM A level under their belt helped enormously in their first year. DD is taking 3 subjects, including FM, and has offers from places nobody would turn their nose up at.

My nephew studied CS and found that having (CS, Maths +) FM was a great advantage. It also counted unproblematically as a third A level IIRC.

Further maths had 14,470 entries last summer. German had 2,800.

And?

A more sensible comparison might be the number taking FM against the cohort of those taking A levels. I think 14k is a low number given how useful maths is.

He does enjoy maths, has never had tutoring, is expecting an 8 or 9 and is also doing additional maths GCSE, so I think it's fair to say he does have an aptitude for it. Tbh he doesn't have many enthusiasms apart from gaming, so it's hard to see an obvious career path for him, but I hope looking through the websites recommended here might give him some ideas to spark his interest.

www.ncl.ac.uk/undergraduate/degrees/g450/ - ?

Might be a bit too niche. And not a totally serious suggestion, but at the same time an indication of some of the more interesting degree courses out there. And at a Russell Group university, to boot.

Or what about

www.imperial.ac.uk/study/ug/courses/computing-department/meng-computing-games-vision-and-interaction/#entry-requirements

FM is desirable.

And underlines that if you take 4 they ALL need to be high.

Re the very specialist degrees like MarchingFrogs and Needmoresleep have linked to above, are those a good idea in terms of employablity? I think ds would be interested in both of those, but having looked through some of the older threads on here, I got the impression that maybe it's not a great idea to specialise too much at degree level? So e.g. a games developer might prefer someone with a degree in cs over someone with a games engineering degree. Am I right in this?

Another question re computer science and related degrees. I've noticed that they often don't ask for a cs A level, but always ask for maths. That's an area ds is interested in, but would a cs A level be advantageous, even if not required?

Overly specialised degrees may not be a good idea, but if you look at the details most of them have a common first 2 or 3 years with the more generalised subject and then they specialise later.

CS A level is, afaik, rarely required as relatively few do it. It may not be offered - there’s a shortage of CS teachers. When DD was doing open days, the electronics at Southampton had a shared admissions tutor talk with CS (its very highly rated for both) , the CS tutor quipped that it didn’t matter if you had done CS, they’d get you out of your bad habits in the first term. obviously it was a joke, and I believe the post reform CS A level is much improved and more valued than the old one.

But I don’t think many good CS departments would turn down someone with good grades in double maths and physics; perhaps they’d expect some indication that the applicant was interested and had some aptitude in the area. It’s one of the fields where there’s loads of opportunity for doing stuff outside of the classroom - raspberry pi, programming Arduino controllers for robotics etc.

Getting some familiarity with programming is useful for many fields nowadays. Python seems to be the most popular language at the moment, but once you’ve got the idea of how to go about it, learning other languages isn’t too hard. Many STEM courses will have mandatory and/or optional programming modules anyway. I write scientific software... I learned fortran at uni on cards in the late 70s

Hippos, if you look a bit more closely, the Imperial one has a broad two year engineering base, and then you specialise, so plenty of time to change interests. DS did similar with his economics degree. Two years core courses, then a final year of econometrics which is what he eventually graduated in. (Incidentally econometrics is a good option for social science loving mathematics.)

My understanding, though I am not an engineer, is that there is a whole lot of really interesting overlap between gaming technology, robotics and other visual type stuff, such as medical imaging (bio-medical engineering.)

So actually rather than being niche a course like this at a strong research university like Imperial opens the door to studying a range of engineering applications and then to specialise.

Which it why I suggested up thread that you looked at the courses available at Imperial. Not necessarily because he might want to go to Imperial, but because as a STEM specialist University they offer a broad range of courses so would give him some idea of what is out there.

Thanks Errol and Needmoresleep. This is all so helpful. DS has been looking at a lot of the ideas and websites suggested on this thread and I think he's already thinking more clearly about what kind of thing he wants to do. Thank you everyone who's replied - I wasn't expecting so much help.