OCR Computer Science A Level?

[GrumpyMuleFan]

DS is choosing A Levels / 6th form courses and considering OCR Computer Science, although he doesn't have a GCSE in it. He has been a late developer in maths and is now quite solid - he says he likes the problem solving aspect of it. He has some work experience lined up for the summer in fintech and I think this is where he's starting to see his career.

I know nothing about CS A Level, but his school say he could join the course, despite not having done a GCSE. Apparently you don't need the A level to study CS at university. Anyone have any insight into CS A Level? Would love to hear of experiences, good and otherwise. His other choice would be economics, but he is has been reading about it and thinks it is too essay based for him.

Thank you.

My son does it at A level he also did it for GCSE. At his college if you want to do it you need a minimum of 6 at maths gcse it's very maths heavy. People who didn't do it at GCSE tend to struggle as they obviously don't go over the GCSE stuff.

Thank you @Laserwho His school also have the level 6 maths entry requirement and also want them to take Core Maths. He's good with that. I'm just more worried about him catching up on the GCSE content quickly enough to assimilate it. Quite randomly I met the CS teacher at his school and he said they cover it all as course (and uni courses) are designed for students who haven't done it before. Maybe he's keen on numbers?

Is your son enjoying it? How is he finding the content?

Bump

It's true that CS courses in general assume you haven't done it before.
Your DC might have to work harder at first as all the content will be new, whereas for ppl with GCSE the start of a topic will be revision/recap before the new content for everyone.
My degree was like this, although the first term had 2 different "intro" modules, depending on if you had done the subject before. My friends who had done CS before uni reckon they only had a 1 month advantage at most, I'm not sure how true that is but those who had done the subject before had an easier time at first than I did, but we got the same grades at the end (or better in my case ;) )

thank you @scissy - that is really heartening actually. Well done you for doing so well in your degree. Thinking back, I studied economics at uni and we rattled through the Alevel in the first semester. I think a coding course over the summer would really help too.