• Question: What GCSEs did you take?

    Asked by booklover to Fran, Peppe, Greg, Petros, Pooja on 15 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Greg Chance

      Greg Chance answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      I did science, maths english lit and lang, french, business studies, CDT at GCSE level and physics, chemistry, maths and graphics at A-level. Although some people I work with have come through other routes, you will find it easier if you have this background.

    • Photo: Petros Papapanagiotou

      Petros Papapanagiotou answered on 16 Nov 2017:

      I went to school in Greece where the system is very different and you don’t have that many options for courses. Back when I studied we had 8 compulsory courses. You also had to choose one of 3 “paths” depending on what you want to study, each with 4 courses you had to take which I guess are the equivalent of A-Levels in the UK.

      The 8 courses were: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Greek Language, Greek Literature, History, Principles of Economics

      The 4 courses in my path were Adv. Maths, Adv. Physics, Adv. Chemistry, and Adv. Biology.

    • Photo: Fran Zuch

      Fran Zuch answered on 16 Nov 2017:

      Like Petros, I did not go to school here, but in Germany. In Germany, you basically take all classes until you start A-Levels, you just choose a couple of extra courses in preparation to see if you like them before you commit to them.
      So for that, I choose English and Politics in preparation and took Philosophy as well. I also had to choose a Science course and I took Chemistry. But while all that went on, I still had to take the basic courses Maths, German, French (could drop prior to A-Levels), Biology and Physics (could drop those two as well), History, Art, Music and Geography (and dropped those) and Sports.
      So basically in Germany you never have to choose just Science or just Humanities, the general A-Level includes all areas, but you can do more science if you like, you just have to also take Politics, Geography or History and a language/humanities course.

    • Photo: Giuseppe Cotugno

      Giuseppe Cotugno answered on 21 Nov 2017:

      In Italy we don’t have a GCSE system, I looked it up on wikipedia and I will try to answer as best as I can. The answer I am giving you is based on what I studied at my university and what I think it might be useful to know prior starting. If my school would have had GCSE, I would have had to take as GCSE Latin, Ancient Greek, Literature, History and Philosophy (Italian students are not given a choice, but they can apply to any faculty they like afterwards).

      Probably you might want to take Math, Science and Additional Science (the academic version) and Economics (if you can’t take them all, then drop Economics). Being broad and theoretical would allow you an easy start and would let you adjust on the go to the engineering you like while you study. If you try to be more specific (say, you decide to take Computer Science, Electronics and System and Control which are useful subjects for my own daily work) you are nailing yourself to a few types of engineering: you will be very fast and proficient at the beginning but you won’t be able to switch easily later on if you don’t like what you are doing (this is what happens to those Italian students that graduated from Technical Schools). It is still possible to switch, just it is harder.

      That said, this is an advise from a person that hasn’t gone through GCSE assessment himself and it is based on what I actually studied rather than what it is required on entry, so take my advice wisely

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