What A-levels did you take and how have they helped you, as a scientist?

Question: What A-levels did you take and how have they helped you, as a scientist?
- Keywords:
  education
Asked by katiechip98 to Jen, Jill, Mel, Phil, Stef on 13 Mar 2013.
- Jill Magee answered on 13 Mar 2013:
  
  Here in Scotland we don’t have A-levels. I had Standard Grades, Highers and Advanced Highers. The highers I took were English, Maths, Chemistry, Physics and Biology. I then took Chemistry, Physics and Biology at Advanced Higher.
  
  Doing all three subjects up to Advanced Higher definitely gave me help in my first couple of years at University as some of the topics covered were similar. It meant that if I found something quite difficult in school, then going over it again at University helped me understand it more.
  
  Also, if I hadn’t taken these subjects at school, then I wouldn’t have got into my university course and I therefore wouldn’t be in my dream job! So I guess they’ve helped me quite a lot :-)!
- Stefan Piatek answered on 13 Mar 2013:
  
  This is going to sound terrible in terms of not being well rounded but I did: Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. They’re essentially all of the pillars for science. I guess you could think of each one being more specific to helping me with my science.
  
  So Biology is really important and close to what I do now, and you need some knowledge of chemistry to understand how and why things in life happen. Physics lays down the ways and reasons that chemical reactions take place and so on. Finally Maths is needed for all calculations which are unfortunately a part of every science at some point!
  
  The jump between GCSE and A level was quite large and between A level and university is even bigger! Thankfully you get to grips with it and things become a lot more interesting.
- Melissa Brereton answered on 13 Mar 2013:
  
  I took biology, chemistry, physics and maths. I wanted to take sociology at A level but my maths teacher told me it was better for me to take maths! All the skills you learn during your science A levels such as critical thinking, team-work, essay writing, they all help you as a scientist!
- Jennifer Paxton answered on 13 Mar 2013:
  
  I’m the same as Jill in that I did standard grades, Highers and (when I was at school) Sixth year studies (SYS). I did English, Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Music for my highers and the following year I did SYS maths and music. We weren’t allowed to take 3 sciences at higher level so I did music instead which was great fun and a good balance to my other subjects.
  
  Doing chemistry, physics and maths at school was great to give me a grounding and I still use a lot of what I learned then in my current job but I didn’t take up biology until Uni….so it’s never too late! 🙂
- Phil Rice answered on 13 Mar 2013:
  
  I did chemistry, zoology (for some reason I though that plants were boring – only now do I know that;s just stupid), and physics. I did not do maths as I had a terrible teacher. Although I had a very good zoology teacher he was a true-believer Christian and so did not explain evolution very well at all. Understanding evolution is ESSENTIAL to all of biology. I would also advise anyone interested in doing science as a career to do maths; it’s very useful.

Question: What A-levels did you take and how have they helped you, as a scientist?

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