• Question: With your mixture of science a-levels, do you find that each science complements the other well?

    Asked by rpickles1 to Jack, Tom on 21 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Tom Branson

      Tom Branson answered on 21 Mar 2013:


      I studied Chemistry, Physics and Maths at A-level. I think at A-level the subjects are actually quite different. Maths can help, but the maths in Phys and Chem is a lot more simple than A-level maths.

      I think it would be good if they did have more overlap because in real life nothing is separated into one specific subject – you need a broad knowledge. At university the subjects do start to merge and there is a definite overlap between them all.

      I studied chemistry at university but now I work with proteins and bacteria. And so I have had to learn quite a lot of basic biology in the last couple years. But this is not a problem, as you go through life you will start to do new things and will pick up different skills and knowledge that you haven’t learnt in school.

    • Photo: Jack Heal

      Jack Heal answered on 21 Mar 2013:


      I did chemistry and biology, and these were a pretty good pair and I think knowing about one helps you with the other. For the work I do now, I’m definitely glad I did both of them. I also did maths and French, which don’t go together as neatly!
      A lot of people to who choose maths study physics as well. They are a good pair to study together, even closer than biology and chemistry. Some of the material that you learn is the same in both – mostly things that Isaac Newton worked on, called mechanics.

      Choose what you enjoy doing. If you think that you’d like to work in drug design then I think that chemistry, biology and maths is the perfect combination. (But I’m biased because that’s what I did!!)

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 21 Mar 2013:


      Hi there! I did biology and chemistry at A-level and there were some elements that fitted together. It wasn’t until I got to uni and did biochemistry that I saw why physical sciences were relevant to biological sciences. Lots of people do maths or physics too but I didn’t enjoy them (and wasn’t very good at them!) so opted for English instead. Thankfully it worked out OK as there were always tutors at uni who could offer some mathcs help if I really needed it.

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