• Question: I want to be a geneticist or a Astro biologist or an astronomer but I don't know what Gcse's to take. What should I take as Gsce's and A levels

    Asked by whyarescientistsalwaysgeeky to Hitesh, Hywel, Mae, Nik, Tiffany on 18 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Nicola Ibberson

      Nicola Ibberson answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      Astrobiology is a field that incorporates many different sciences – physics, maths, biology and chemistry all play a role. Genetics has a little chemistry involved with it, but is mostly biology related, and astronomy requires you to have a physics or a maths degree – so you would need to get physics and maths A levels.

      It sounds like your scientific interest is still quite broad at this point, so you might like to take seperate science GCSE’s rather than dual award, and make sure you try hard in maths. You can then have another think once you get to A Level about what career you think you might enjoy, and make your A level choices based on that.

      I’m a geneticist and I did dual award science followed by A Levels in Biology, Psychology, History and Law – so it just shows that you don’t have to only do sciences to have a career in science!

    • Photo: Mae Woods

      Mae Woods answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      If you want to be a scientist I would recommend taking Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics or Engineering and anything else that you like.

      This is because all the sciences help each other and it is easier to pick things up at University when you come with lots of knowledge from the sciences.

      My A-Levels were in Biology, Maths, Music, Graphic Design and General Studies and now I am doing a PhD in biology and maths, so it is not the end of a science career if you don’t do all sciences.

    • Photo: Tiffany Taylor

      Tiffany Taylor answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      Well, definitely all the sciences, biology, chemistry,physics, and you should definitely take maths too. Like Mae says, Engineering might help if it’s an option.

      For my A levels I did Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Psychology. But if you make the wrong decision there are always things you can do. Here at Reading University I know they offer a “foundation” course in biology, which means you can learn enough biology for them to let you on the full biology university course even if you didn’t do biology at A level. It’s an extra year of course – but it’s really good for people who only realised what they wanted to do late on!

    • Photo: Hitesh Dave

      Hitesh Dave answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      think for any work related to space you need to get interested in physics, maths and engineering at most……technology and biology knowledge would be good…

Comments