Please help me with subject choices!

[thebelljar09]

Hi everyone, I need your help. I'm in year 10 now choosing subjects for year 11. What I have in mind:

- Health and Human Development
- Further Mathematics
- English (EAL)
- Literature
- Legal Studies
- Psychology (Units 3 & 4)
- Vietnamese (Units 3 & 4)

Now I'm not the kind of girl that can cope with 2 Units 3 & 4 subjects with 5 Units 1 & 2 subjects no matter how hard I try. I would have to drop one Units 1 & 2 subjects and pick it up in year 12. I'm planning to do Psychology in university, so Psychology and HHD are essential. I want a Maths just in case. So that leaves us with Legal Studies and Literature. I'm doing Literature Units 1 & 2 through an enhancement program at school but it feels more like English more than Literature (I know because I've been doing Literature as an elective since year 9). Everyone is advising me to drop Literature and pick it up in year 12 but I've never heard of anyone who does Literature Units 3 & 4 without Units 1 & 2. I absolutely adore Literature but I don't think I'll do very well at it considering English is my second language. But I love it so much, it'd be like my 'fun' subject to keep me motivated. As for Legal Studies, I did Commerce this year and we covered the civil and criminal law and the basic government system and I found it pretty straightforward. I received high results for the subject but I don't think I enjoy it as much as Literature.

Long story short, please tell me what you think I should do.
1/ Follow everyone's advice and drop Lit - pick it up in year 12.
2/ Do Lit next year (units 1 & 2) and pick up Legal Studies in year 12.
3/ Don't do Literature at all. It is a hard subject and I'll end up with a score like 25. I'm better off focusing on 4 subjects in year 12.
4/ Be unique and pick up an University Extension Studies.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

[pi]

Deleted your repeat topic, discussion here will be fine

[datfatcat]

Hi everyone, I need your help. I'm in year 10 now choosing subjects for year 11. What I have in mind:

- Health and Human Development
- Further Mathematics
- English (EAL)
- Literature
- Legal Studies
- Psychology (Units 3 & 4)
- Vietnamese (Units 3 & 4)

Now I'm not the kind of girl that can cope with 2 Units 3 & 4 subjects with 5 Units 1 & 2 subjects no matter how hard I try. I would have to drop one Units 1 & 2 subjects and pick it up in year 12. I'm planning to do Psychology in university, so Psychology and HHD are essential. I want a Maths just in case. So that leaves us with Legal Studies and Literature. I'm doing Literature Units 1 & 2 through an enhancement program at school but it feels more like English more than Literature (I know because I've been doing Literature as an elective since year 9). Everyone is advising me to drop Literature and pick it up in year 12 but I've never heard of anyone who does Literature Units 3 & 4 without Units 1 & 2. I absolutely adore Literature but I don't think I'll do very well at it considering English is my second language. But I love it so much, it'd be like my 'fun' subject to keep me motivated. As for Legal Studies, I did Commerce this year and we covered the civil and criminal law and the basic government system and I found it pretty straightforward. I received high results for the subject but I don't think I enjoy it as much as Literature.

Long story short, please tell me what you think I should do.
1/ Follow everyone's advice and drop Lit - pick it up in year 12.
2/ Do Lit next year (units 1 & 2) and pick up Legal Studies in year 12.
3/ Don't do Literature at all. It is a hard subject and I'll end up with a score like 25. I'm better off focusing on 4 subjects in year 12.
4/ Be unique and pick up an University Extension Studies.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Or 5/ Drop Health and Human Development 1&2 and do 3 & 4 in year 12.  I personally think you should continue studying Lit because it is the subject that you enjoy and keeps you motivate!  I have some friends who did EAL and literature and they all said Lit was manageable. The reason why i said drop Health and Human Development 1&2 is because it is not a prerequisite for psychology (so I cannot see why you said it is "essential")  So in case you didn't do well in one of your 3 &4 subjects in year 11 and want to repeat the same subject in year 12 (hence give up the Health and Human Development), it wouldn't be an issue in terms of getting into psychology in uni. 

[slothpomba]

Now I'm not the kind of girl that can cope with 2 Units 3 & 4 subjects with 5 Units 1 & 2 subjects no matter how hard I try.

I'm not entirely sure if the school will even let you do 7 subjects. Many of my friends did Viet so i know you're technically doing it outside of school but it is still a full VCE subject like any other.

I think it is a really bad idea to do 7 like this though. Remember, your bottom 2 subjects only give you 10% of their actual score. A massive improvement of 20->30 or 30->40 in your bottom subjects will only give you 2.0->3.0 or 3.0->4.0 added to your aggregate, it's not much at all.

I'm planning to do Psychology in university, so Psychology and HHD are essential.

I'd strongly encourage you to check this. I haven't heard of a psychology course needing psychology as a prerequisite before. That said, even if it isn't essential, i think it is a very good idea to actually experience studying psychology academically before you jump into it in uni.

Can't say much about the literature situation unfortunately given that i only did English Language. The best advice anyone can give you for high-school, university and life in general is do what you enjoy. It really is the golden rule here. I did methods and i absolutely hated to the content, every piece of work was made 10x as worse and i had much less desire to crack open the book. Not surprisingly, it was my lowest scoring subject. I really liked biology and it was my highest.

[brenden]

Studying Psych at the moment, having done Psych units 1-4 and HHD units 1&2 -- HHD is entirely irrelevant (what I studied, anyway) and haven't seen a piece of material in uni Psych that reminds me of HHD. There's probably some overlap in developmental psych now that I think of it, but not enough that it would be an advantage. Having Psych units 1-4 is a big advantage in first year uni, it's all the same stuff, but it certainly isn't a prerequisite for anything (except it can be used as one for a Monash Sci degree if you don't have Methods or the other sciences)
I would defs drop HHD. Keep Lit, there's no way I would drop Lit in your position. Legal is also pretty easy to pick up in Year 12 without Year 11 (I know from experience), just to let you know.

[thebelljar09]

First of all, thank you so much for your replies, it's very helpful.

Or 5/ Drop Health and Human Development 1&2 and do 3 & 4 in year 12.  I personally think you should continue studying Lit because it is the subject that you enjoy and keeps you motivate!  I have some friends who did EAL and literature and they all said Lit was manageable. The reason why i said drop Health and Human Development 1&2 is because it is not a prerequisite for psychology (so I cannot see why you said it is "essential")  So in case you didn't do well in one of your 3 &4 subjects in year 11 and want to repeat the same subject in year 12 (hence give up the Health and Human Development), it wouldn't be an issue in terms of getting into psychology in uni. 

The only reason why I said HHD was 'essential' is because at my school it is recommended that you take HHD if you want to go into any Health Sciences/Psychology course in uni.

I'm not entirely sure if the school will even let you do 7 subjects. Many of my friends did Viet so i know you're technically doing it outside of school but it is still a full VCE subject like any other.

I think it is a really bad idea to do 7 like this though. Remember, your bottom 2 subjects only give you 10% of their actual score. A massive improvement of 20->30 or 30->40 in your bottom subjects will only give you 2.0->3.0 or 3.0->4.0 added to your aggregate, it's not much at all.

I'd strongly encourage you to check this. I haven't heard of a psychology course needing psychology as a prerequisite before. That said, even if it isn't essential, i think it is a very good idea to actually experience studying psychology academically before you jump into it in uni.

Can't say much about the literature situation unfortunately given that i only did English Language. The best advice anyone can give you for high-school, university and life in general is do what you enjoy. It really is the golden rule here. I did methods and i absolutely hated to the content, every piece of work was made 10x as worse and i had much less desire to crack open the book. Not surprisingly, it was my lowest scoring subject. I really liked biology and it was my highest.

I don't plan on doing 7 subjects in one year, I'll stress out so much. I definitely want to study Psychology at a VCE level before jumping into it in uni. I agree with you that everyone should do what they enjoy.

Studying Psych at the moment, having done Psych units 1-4 and HHD units 1&2 -- HHD is entirely irrelevant (what I studied, anyway) and haven't seen a piece of material in uni Psych that reminds me of HHD. There's probably some overlap in developmental psych now that I think of it, but not enough that it would be an advantage. Having Psych units 1-4 is a big advantage in first year uni, it's all the same stuff, but it certainly isn't a prerequisite for anything (except it can be used as one for a Monash Sci degree if you don't have Methods or the other sciences)
I would defs drop HHD. Keep Lit, there's no way I would drop Lit in your position. Legal is also pretty easy to pick up in Year 12 without Year 11 (I know from experience), just to let you know.

When you say 'drop HHD', do you mean drop Units 1 & 2 or drop the whole thing? Do you think I should do Psychology from Units 1-4 instead of just 3 & 4? Then I'd need a 3/4 subject next year. My school won't let me do Legal 3/4 in year 11. The reason why I want to do 7 subjects over 2 years is because I want my worst scoring subject to not be counted in my ATAR. In this case it may end up being Further or Literature (I love it, but it's highly competitive and I'm not doing it for scaling purposes)

[brenden]

Well, if you're only taking HHD because you think it's going to help you with Psychology in Uni, then it would be a waste of a subject.
Sorry I just looked closer at your original post and saw you're taking Psych 3/4 in Year 11. Keep that, don't bother with Year 11 Psych, it's easy enough to pick up at uni anyway. Honestly though, I don't think 7 subjects is a good idea unless you're aiming for 99.95... Not having your worst subject count is pretty pointless, the difference in your ATAR between taking 6 or 7 subjects might not even be noticeable. Depending on the range between your 6th and 7th... your ATAR might not even change. So, a whole extra subject for potentially the same ATAR. What you could do with the time you would have invested into your 7th subject is just invest more time into the other ones and get higher scores in those.
Looking at your subjects, I'd keep your plan exactly as it is but just drop HHD and do 6 subjects instead. (If it makes you feel any better, I did 1 subject in Year 11 and only 4 in Year 12, for a total of 5)

[thebelljar09]

Well, if you're only taking HHD because you think it's going to help you with Psychology in Uni, then it would be a waste of a subject.

Is HHD an interesting subject in itself though? Did you enjoy it when you studied Units 1 and 2?

Honestly though, I don't think 7 subjects is a good idea unless you're aiming for 99.95... Not having your worst subject count is pretty pointless, the difference in your ATAR between taking 6 or 7 subjects might not even be noticeable. Depending on the range between your 6th and 7th... your ATAR might not even change. So, a whole extra subject for potentially the same ATAR. What you could do with the time you would have invested into your 7th subject is just invest more time into the other ones and get higher scores in those.

I'm not aiming for 99.95, I'll be extremely happy with anything higher than 90... What you're saying makes perfect sense though, I guess I was just so worried that I'll get an awful score for one of the subjects.

Looking at your subjects, I'd keep your plan exactly as it is but just drop HHD and do 6 subjects instead. (If it makes you feel any better, I did 1 subject in Year 11 and only 4 in Year 12, for a total of 5)

I'm starting to consider doing 6 subjects, but not sure if my school will allow me to do 4 subjects in year 12. They don't like students having too many spares. Did you get the ATAR that you wanted? If you could do VCE all over again would you do 5 subjects or 6?

[brenden]

I hated HHD so much that I played Pokemon Black inside of class more than I looked up in class. But you aren't me, there are people on this site that really love Health. I'm still trying to figure out why, though.

I got a few points higher than the ATAR I wanted

It'd be frustrating if your school was stupid enough to not let you do four subjects, but I suppose that can't be helped.

Uhhh... If I could do my VCE again I'd probably do many, many things differently (I was a bit of a shit student in Year 11, to say the least). But I think the best strategic choice to make is to do six subjects, two in Year 11 and four in Year 12. So I would definitely do six over five. (That was actually my original plan; I started with Legal and Psychology 3/4 in 2011 but then drew on a SAC so  they kicked me out of Psych. Study hard and don't be like me ok bye)

[thebelljar09]

I think I've made up my mind, and I'm super happy with my decision. Next year I'm doing:

- Further 1/2
- English 1/2
- Legal Studies 1/2
- Literature 1/2
- Psychology 3/4
- Vietnamese 3/4

Thank you so much for your input, it has helped me helps! Best of luck with everything xx

[brenden]

You're welcome, looks like you've made a great choice
Study hard, good luck!