Unique situation - looking for advice on which 2 subjects to take (1 Viewer)

[Drop_out]

I have a university degree in the sciences with a high GPA . Regardless, I'm looking to study 2 subjects via OTEN for personal development and to improve academically. Just to let you know I dropped out very early on in year 11 to go to university so I'm really quite lost here as to which subjects I should take.
My preference is to find two courses (perhaps 3) which will combine to give me a basic foundation in the arts and thus allow me to confidently go into post-grad law or medicine. I may seem stupid to some of you for attempting this, but it's something I've wanted to do for a while and that I think would bring me great satisfaction.

I'll be studying full time at the same time so I've limited myself to 2 subjects per year (just prelim or prelim and final depending on how hard it is). Anyways, the courses which I think would be most suitable for me (in order of decreasing importance) are:

1. Adv english
2. Modern history
3. Economics

I was also wondering if anyone could make predictions on how much time per week would an average student spend on these types of subjects? Can I work very sporadically depending on my schedule and still pass or are there weekly assignments/quizes?

Should I jump straight into the HSC subjects or do the preliminary year beforehand?

Any future, current, or past HSCers have any thoughts on this?

 

[Renegader]

For English, just jump into HSC as prelim is really not that important. I'm not sure for Modern, but for Economics you need a pretty solid foundation of the preliminary work, especially in the later topics, I guess.

 

[drewbles]

That is soooo interesting... How'd you manage to get into university without an ATAR? Do you really need to study HSC level for confidence? Why don't you just save yourself some time each day to readup on things related to that? Or just focus on preparing for the GAMSAT and sort the other stuff out during your medical or law degree...

If the mark you end up with is important I'd suggest getting a tutor for English or finding someone you can submit your essays to for feedback. You don't need prelim for English but you probably do need to know how to write and structure essays and other text types. I wouldn't say you "need" to enrol in the prelim component for Economics but you do need to understand a few things which can be self-taught. I'm not sure how long you'd spend on each subject; it really depends on what you want to achieve as a final result and how you're planning on learning the content e.g. difference between answering questions and writing out notes a hundred times.

I'm going to repeat a few of my HSC subjects through OTEN along with full-time first year university in an effort to be accepted into UNSW Med (it's UMAT + (50%ATAR 50%Uni instead of just ATAR so both need to be high).

Goodluck to you

 

[Delta Education]

Hi there,

Though I've never been in a situation similar to yours, I'd suggest Adv English and Economics.

Advanced English is incredibly useful because it teaches a lot of skills like essay writing, communication, and analysis, which are all incredibly useful for a uni degree (even if you plan to focus on scientific areas). There isn't a direct link between the Prelim and HSC courses in terms of texts learnt, but the skills build on from each other, so if you really struggle with communication or writing, it might be worth doing the preliminary course first.

Economics is useful because it IS a subject you use after school. Getting a basic knowledge of how economics, and micro and macro economics works will help you understand things like the finance section of the paper, the share market, or what's going on when the news talks about things like interest rates and how they're brought about.

Modern History is great for understanding a bit of context about why the world is as it is now, but in terms of application, it's probably the least applicable and useful of the three.