Which of these subjects should I do for HSC? (1 Viewer)

[Erin_Elizabeth]

Hey, so pretty much I'm choosing my Preliminary subjects in 3 or so weeks and I need some serious help. So far I've got 10 units:
-Advanced English (2 units)
-Studies of Religion I (1 unit, Catholic school)
-Mathematics (2 units)
-PDHPE (2 units)
-Modern History (2 units)
-Sports, Lifestyle & Recreation (1 unit)

So I need 1 more 2 unit subject. From what I've understood my school won't let me do any more than 12 units unless I do an extension subject and although I'm one A off a straight A report I really don't want to do an extension subject. (Except maybe history in year 12)

So these are the subjects that I was considering for my final 2 unit one. I'm considering high school PDHPE teaching or joining the Navy or Police Force after school. Btw, I got my subject handbook yesterday and this changed my mind about a few things:

-Legal Studies (didn't really care for it until yesterday. Now it looks really interesting and could be useful for Policing or Navy)
-Entertainment VET (I kinda want to do a VET course and this is the only one that interests me)
-Ancient History (maybe even instead of modern?)
-Drama (i did it in year 9 and just finished working on a school musical. Despite dropping it at the beginning of this year I miss it quite a bit)
-Information Processes Technology (I like computers but I'm not sure about the subject)
-Biology (I know its kinda prerequisite (sorry I can't spell)for PE teaching but is it really as boring as it seems in the book?)
-Industrial Technology - Multimedia (not that I care much for scaling but it seems to scale really bad and I've been told it's not much fun either)
-Earth & Environmental Science (I've been told though there's a lot about rocks, is this true?)
-Society & Culture (I don't really know much about the subject but so far it seems okay)

I'd love to hear anyones opinion on these subjects or even those that I've already decided on. I'm alright at writing so it shouldn't be too much of a problem if the subject has a lot of writing (i've been told Modern History does) I'm really sorry if I've broken any rules or anything - first day so I'm a bit lost. Thanks

 

[Skyzor]

Dont do legal studies, trust me its boring like fvck and so repetitive.

Do ancient, its piss-easy

 

[aya-chan]

Okay, firstly - I don't think you should do biology. Even if it's a prerequiste, you can always do a bridging course later. From the looks of it, you'll probably find it really boring, and imagine if you didn't end up being a PDHPE teacher - you would've wasted two years of your life doing a subject you don't like.

Secondly, I recommend that you do extension english. Even though I don't even particularly like english, I do regret not having done english extension. A lot of the people I talk to really enjoy english extension more than just the normal advanced course. And as a bonus, it can serve as a backup, in case you have a minor stuff up in english advanced - because at least two units of english have to count to your ATAR. If you do stuff up, but you do english extension, only one of your advanced units will count to your ATAR.

Thirdly, do what you think you'll enjoy. I'm not really too familiar with the subjects you've listed there, so I don't really have that much advice to give on that - but if you really like a subject. You'll do well in it. Full stop.

Good luck!

 

[Erin_Elizabeth]

Yeah, I think if I do really need it, I'll do a bridging course. Knowing me I'll change my mind another 20 times about what I wanna do after school anyway. So I think I can cross bio off my list.

Okay. I don't really know that much about it except that it's before or after school hours but if it's gonna help me I probably should consider it. I liked English until this year but I guess its more the teacher than the subject that I don't like now. oh really? Well that's a reason to do it then cause I get pretty freaked out that I've stuffed up bad after every exam.

Good advice, that's why I chose PE and Modern. I love pe and history. Thanks for the advice, particularly about extension english

Thanks!

 

[kfnmpah]

Biology isn't actually boring at all. I did it in year 12- we had a boring option, but that's only 1 year 12 topic in the whole course, and it wasn't eeeeeven THAT boring. There were a few fun excursions and we went to the Australian museum and looked at like 4million year old fossils of our ancestors and extinct animals and stuff. It was actually quite amazing thinking about just how old these fossils were.
I'd reccommend biology. It wasn't as much work as other sciences and not nearly as much work as english or maths. The HSC exam was actually quite easy and the course was interesting for the most part. Plus, you said you wanted to do pe teaching and bio was a prerequisite, why waste your time doing something else when bio is what you need to do. Why waste your summer and money doing a bridging course when you can just do it at school and it's not even boring or much work. Plus, if you end up not wanting to do PE teaching and you did bio, who cares, it is 2 years of school which is nothing considering you only have like max 1 class a day.
Year 12 bio is actually really good because you do more practical stuff when you learn about enzymes and it's really not difficult to do well in or understand.
MY VOTE GOES TO BIO!
- less work than essay subjects and other sciences
- relatively easy
- fun (pracs, interesting topics, excursions)
- easy final exam
- prerequisite for what you think you want to do, if you change your mind, who cares.
If you dislike having to write lots of essays, I wouldn't consider ancient, legal, sac or extension english. Don't do a vet course, they don't count towards your uai, if you're not passionate about drama, i would be hesitant about doing it for your HSC, not sure about IT, i would definitely do bio!!! I promise it's not boring.

 

[Aerath]

MY VOTE GOES TO BIO!
- less work than essay subjects and other sciences
- relatively easy
- fun (pracs, interesting topics, excursions)
- easy final exam
- prerequisite for what you think you want to do, if you change your mind, who cares.

I think the bolded bullet points are massive over generalisations of the course. Subjects are as hard as you want them to be. If you're just aiming for a 60-70, most courses will be shit easy. If you're aiming for first in your school, or a state ranking, then it's going to be quite difficult. So just because you found it easy, doesn't mean others will find it easy. Easiness is relative, and also, every person has a different criteria for easiness.

OP: to answer your question: do the most interesting one. I didn't do anything in High School that was related to what I'm doing in University (and I had already had ideas about my university degree from Year 10).

 

[LoveHateSchool]

I'm confused how your school can let you pick up subs for Yr 12!

But in any case, I recommend Bio or Drama. Bio because it's a pre req and when you do it, if you like it or not it'll guide what you want to do for uni. The first part of Yr 11 bio was a bit boring, but it's great now and imho, it's quite an easy subject to do well in if you put in effort. Or drama, because you like it so you'd prob be good at it. Other meh, not sure if they're your cup of tea, but I don't hear other people raving about the other subs much.

 

[Aerath]

I'm confused how your school can let you pick up subs for Yr 12!

I think he/she is in Yr 10, and they're going into Year 11, hence picking the subjects they 'may' be doing for their HSC.

 

[kfnmpah]

I definitely agree it is relative. I treated school very much like I treat uni.
I went to class, listened (mostly) made sure I understood and did my homework/readings and I got 89 in bio. There wasn't hours and hours of study a week, I just did what any average/good student would do. If you do this there is no reason for anyone to get below a band 5.
I also agree that OP should do what they find interesting. I did sciences and maths because I found them interesting, which also constructs an individual's idea of easiness, i suppose. I was a big derp in english, but not maths and science.

 

[Gigacube]

It's Information Processes and Technology for year 11 & 12. It's more about information systems and processes. The prelim course is very boring but the HSC course is more interesting.

I suggest you take a look at the HSC Syllabus for each of those subjects and ask your teacher to see some samples of the work you do in each of those subjects to get a good idea of the content.

If you decide to do a VET course make sure that you really enjoy the area as you will be doing 35 hours of work placement in year 11 & another 35 hours in year 12. Not all VET courses have work placement as compulsory but if they do it's mandatory that you complete it otherwise it will not go towards your HSC.

Industrial Technology - Multimedia - My friend does this and they said that you've got to be genuinely interested in multimedia otherwise it's boring. You have to submit a major project to BOS.

I think that you should choose subjects that you are interested in as you will have more motivation to work on them. Also, good on you for not focussing on the scaling of subjects.

 

[Erin_Elizabeth]

I know I might need bio after school but I'm really worried that I'm not going to like it and therefore do really bad at it. I guess I'll still consider it though if it's not as boring as I thought it was.

I'm definately aiming for over 70 so I'm gonna have to work pretty hard.

Most of my friends have no idea what they're doing when they finish school so I guess that they're going to have to pick subjects without relating them to their future. I'm still picking PE which is gonna be pretty important but yeah I've been told to just do whatever you enjoy.

sorry, I probs didn't explain very well. I'm in year 10 now and picking my subjects for year 11. So I can have min and max 12 in year 11 whereas most schools let you do more than 12 in year 11.

Well if this many people like bio maybe its not as boring as I think it is. For drama as much as I love it i'm not very good at it which worries me. I only did well in year 9 because of the theory. But I have been told that 11 & 12 drama is a lot better than 9 & 10 and I think musical may have helped me a little bit and motivated me more to do it.

Yep, spot on, again sorry I was very specific. I'm doing pretty well at the moment so hopefully with a lot more work I can do good next year and in year 12. I find history and PE areas interesting, hence why I chose PE, SLR and Modern History.

Okay, I didn't really know too much about that one. It's just that I quite like computers and multimedia stuff. Probably a good idea, yeah. I've got my subjects info night first week back so I'll get to see some of what they've done then. Okay, well again I'll look at what they've done so far and see if it interests me.

Thanks, I don't know how many times I've been told to ignore scaling so I guess it's finally gotten through to me.

Thanks for all the info everyone!

 

[Erin_Elizabeth]

Can anyone tell me any more about Legal Studies?

 

[enoilgam]

Legal studies is very similar to Modern, Ancient and SOR in terms of the skills you need. Personally I think it would probably help you more to do legal as the skills tie in with the other units you have selected (especially SOR and Modern and to a lesser extent PDHPE and Advanced English). In terms of difficulty, Legal studies is fairly easy. It is about the same difficulty as ancient but not as hard as Modern. When choosing your subjects, try to consider what you enjoy more then what you need for university, as you can always do bridging courses to cover the gaps.

 

[Erin_Elizabeth]

Okay, well that's good then if it works well with my other subjects. How much harder is Modern than ancient? Is it like more writing and essays and remembering stuff or something? Yep, that's what I'm trying to do with PE & Modern. I think I will do a bridging course if I still want to do PE teaching and need bio. I'm still considering Navy and Police just as much as PE teaching too so I'm not really going to need bio for them. Actually Legal's probably more relevant for them than bio is anyway I think and I'm pretty sure that for Navy for most areas the only prerequiste is maths and its not like if u don't have it u can't get in either.

 

[s2 SEductive]

Have you ever considered senior science?

 

[Riproot]

Legal - UGH!!! BO-Rang.
Entertainment VET - It's a VET course... bitch please.
Ancient History - Piss easy and kind of interesting I hear.
Drama - Fucking wanted to do drama...
IST - Fucking shit.
Biology - BEST SUBJECT EVER!!! IT'S SO EASY AND KIND OF INTERESTING. DO IT!!!
IT-M - Never heard of it.
EES - Lots of rocks. It's shit. My school stopped running it because the kids did poorly every year.
S&C - Just... No.

So either Ancient, Drama or Biology.
Ancient, Modern and Extension Histories could be interesting in year 12, or you could do Drama as you seem like you would really enjoy it and you were in the musical and stuff, I know I would love to do drama... but I can't :'(, or you could do the best subject I do, it is SOOOOO easy and pretty interesting, but I don't know whether you'd like it, but out of my subjects it's probably my favourite because I do well with little effort, it's interesting and it's not ENGLISH!!!

EDIT: DO EE1 and Studies of Religion II. Then you'll have 12 units and you won't have to pick up an extra subject that you don't really want to. Also, if you do well in English and History, you will definitely do well in SOR2.

 

[Riproot]

It's Information Processes and Technology for year 11 & 12. It's more about information systems and processes. The prelim course is very boring but the HSC course is more interesting.

Isn't Information Software and Technology the non-ATAR one?

 

[Erin_Elizabeth]

Isn't Information Software and Technology the non-ATAR one?

Sorry I meant to say Information Processes Technology not Information Software Technology. I only just noticed, oops. There is Software Design and Development (my school doesn't do it) so maybe that's the non-ATAR one? or Information Software Technology is the year 9 and 10 one

 

[Erin_Elizabeth]

Biology - BEST SUBJECT EVER!!! IT'S SO EASY AND KIND OF INTERESTING. DO IT!!!
IT-M - Never heard of it.
EES - Lots of rocks. It's shit. My school stopped running it because the kids did poorly every year.

EDIT: DO EE1 and Studies of Religion II. Then you'll have 12 units and you won't have to pick up an extra subject that you don't really want to. Also, if you do well in English and History, you will definitely do well in SOR2.

If everyone is saying that bio is so good than maybe I will still consider it. I've got some night where u see what gets done in class so I'll take a look and see if it interests me and isn't as bad as in the book.

I hadn't heard of IT - Multimedia until 2 days ago either but I haven't really heard anything good about it and no one wanted to do it at my school last year so there was no class for it. Somehow I don't think I'll be doing it.

EES - yeah, I got told its a lot about rocks so yeah...maybe not for me

I think I'll strongly consider EE1 but SOR2... I struggle to stay awake in RE as it is (probs cause my teachers real boring and I'm learning stuff i already know over and over again) so I really don't wanna have to do any more of it than I have to. I do wanna pick up an extra 2 unit subject - I just don't know which one cause there's a few I want to do but i can only pick one of them. And SLR I still want to do cause its about sports management and there's lots of prac.

Thanks for the opinions

 

[Erin_Elizabeth]

Have you ever considered senior science?

I haven't really cause I suck at physics and chemistry. Bio and (well up until I heard about all the rock stuff) Earth and Environmental are the only types of science that i find kinda interesting.