I believe I did 7 CSE's & O Levels ..... was Math & English plus 5 option choices.

It's not the number that matters but the content (and potentially the grades). If someone fails maths and physics but has O Levels in English Literature, History, Geography, French, German, Art and Home Economics, would that make them a potentially good engineer?

I therefore agree with Arran's comment to emphasis quality and relevance over quantity, particularly relevance.

Alasdair

Is anybody able to comment about the following GCSEs:


1. English literature. In a survey of parents asking about what they think is the most useless and pointless secondary school subject English literature topped the poll. Despite this the subject is officially compulsory in England up to KS4 although in recent years it has become optional in Wales with around 40% of students not taking it for GCSE.


2. Foreign languages. There was a discussion on the IET forums about foreign languages for engineers a few years ago but it appears to have been wiped. Foreign languages are no longer compulsory at KS4 and a sizeable number of applicants for engineering degrees in recent years do not have a foreign language GCSE. Does this put them at a disadvantage?


3. Computer science. This new STEM subject has replaced ICT. Does the engineering community value it and give credit to students who have a computer science GCSE?


4. ICT. This subject has now been discontinued but was it a sore loss or a subject that was of little relevance to an engineering career or had seen better times?


5. Religious studies. About 90% of English secondary schools have made religious studies a compulsory GCSE subject. What does the engineering community think of this subject?


6. Latin and ancient Greek. Most holders of a GCSE in these subjects attended an independent secondary school rather than a state school. Does the engineering community give credit to students who have GCSEs in these subjects?


7. Business studies and economics. It's uncommon for engineers or applicants for engineering degrees to have GCSEs in these subjects. Business studies tends to be more popular in state schools and economics in independent schools. Does the engineering community value them and give credit to students who have GCSEs in these subjects?


8. Music and drama. Superficially these come across as marginal subjects for most engineering careers apart from those relating to music and entertainment, so only a handful of engineers and applicants for engineering degrees have GCSEs in these subjects. Andy Millar mentioned something about the benefit of these subjects in another discussion. Can anybody elaborate on this?

There have been debates amongst parents about whether it's better to have good grades in a smaller number of GCSE subjects that are relevant for a future career or whether employers prefer a larger number of subjects, including those of marginal relevance, on the basis of wanting rounded people, or those who can use the other side of their brain, or just sheer credentialism.


Discussions have ventured into questions whether certain GCSE subjects that are not very popular - including business studies, economics, electronics, classical civilisation, statistics, astronomy, and psychology - can be very beneficial in terms of knowledge even though they are not highly rated or valued by higher education and employers like traditional subjects are. It was also pointed out that although it's common for students to take 12 or 13 GCSEs the subjects taken by one student are more often than not almost the same of the subjects taken by other students both in their school and other schools, resulting in identikit school leavers.

In 1976 we did 11, including maths in 1975 and general studies in 1978

This was about the practical limit

We did:

- English Lit: received a Sunday afternoon's revision

- General Studies: just walked in and did the paper, no interest

- Music just so that I could collect an excellent grade (thanks!) 

- Maths a year early so that we could do Additional Maths with the other 'O' levels

Hope this helps

Studying for a career in engineering takes a lot of your time from the age of 18 (and slightly before) until the age of 67 (in the UK) and sometimes beyond. So use GCSEs to find out about the rest of the world and life!


The most useful (in the long term) subjects I studied at O level and CSE were: History, Sociology, English Lit, and - most of all - Music.

The Maths, English Language, and Physics I did I would largely have learned anyway (and indeed largely did anyway) because I was interested in engineering (and English).


I believe very very strongly that schools should be broadening your knowledge, not narrowing it for some adults' idea of a possible 9-5 job for you - when your idea or the job itself might change completely after a few years anyway! Also, GCSEs are a fantastic "taster" for finding a whole range of things which you (or particularly your parents) might not have dreamed could become a life long interest, whether in work or not. Hence the fact that I encouraged my children to do as many as possible. The actual GCSE qualification is pretty much irrelevant for anything except one thing (see below), it's the new insight that you get on the way that's important.


The "one thing" that the GCSE result is useful for is this: when you find a GCSE subject that unexpectedly grabs you, you can then demonstrating to sixth form or FE colleges (again in the UK) that you are genuinely interested in that subject and are prepared to work at it.


At my children's school they used to (when they were there) study GCSEs and A levels over 5 years, this meant that they could gather huge numbers of them if they wanted. (In fact my daughter took GCSE Astronomy when she was 12, but that was an after-school activity run by the school.) Excellent idea, opened their eyes to all sorts of things: both for my daughter who knew form an early age exactly what she wanted to do, but it confirmed it for her and gave here useful wider sills, and to my son who until the moment he applied to Uni didn't.


One of the (many) reasons I'm so passionate about this is because of two complementary well-known issues we see in the UK related to engineering.

1. Those who have not studied engineering, and who come form non-engineering backgrounds, don't know anything about it at all, and consequently make badly informed political and societal decisions regarding engineering.

2. Those who have studied engineering and nothing else, and who often (in fact in my experience very often) come from engineering family backgrounds, struggle to put their work in context, and often do not understand the societal implications and constraints on their work. As a trivial example, trying to explain to my parents-in-law how to work Windows.

Very interesting debate on this topic last night at the IEEE / IRSE seminar on Ethics in Engineering. We all have a duty to understand each other's world and explain our own. And the wider our underlying knowledge outside our area of specialism the more likely we are to be able to do this.

The above, of course, applies to every profession - not just engineering.


But anyway, life's about much more than what we do 9-5. As my father, a Chartered Engineer, very wisely told me when I was a teenager (probably when I was making my O level choices): "if all you know about is engineering you'll grow up to be a very boring person".


Cheers,


Andy

Finished the above quickly as lunch was ready - reading through it again it comes across to me as a bit bombastic. Sorry  it's not intended to be. But I am very passionate about this.

(And apologies for several typos for the same reason!)