help! I don't know what HSC subject to drop... (1 Viewer)

[felicity0106]

Hi, I've started Year 12 content (technically still in year 11) and I can't decide whether I want to drop a subject and if so, which one. I am currently doing 12 units and THREE MAJOR WORKS (Drama, Society and Culture, Visual Arts) which is a lot but also I enjoy them more and much better at those three subjects than my other three (English Advanced, Maths Advanced, Biology). However, the workload is a lot and I don't know if I can handle the stress later on.

So I am contemplating dropping either Maths Advanced or Visual Arts. However, if I drop one, I won't have any back-up and all my units will count, which I'm scared of. But that means I will have more time to focus on my other subjects.

So MATHS:

• Maths is my worst subject and not as fun as VA (82 in my report)
• In university, I am most likely going to do some sort of film media degree, so maths won't necessarily be useful. But I am scared that I will change my degree and that will require some sort of maths knowledge (note: I am not horrible at maths, it is just not as good as compared to my other subjects)
• Also in Year 11, I did Maths Extension... is it risky just jumping straight from extension to none at all?

And VA:

• VA is the most hefty major work and will take lots of time.
• I am not very confident in my artmaking for VA (I'm fine with theory) but I have done ok (89 in my report)
• The scaling is terrible apparently

please help lol

 

[icycledough]

Looks like the odds are in favour of you dropping maths and keeping VA:

• Maths is your worst subject
• You enjoy VA much more than maths (despite VA having a major work, you enjoy this specifically)
• You want to do a film media degree for which art may be useful while maths won't be as useful

Regarding scaling, that shouldn't be a consideration when choosing your subjects if you're solely choosing it for the scaling. A common example I give is that if you do VA, get a raw mark of 90 which may scale down to a 80, it's better for your ATAR then doing maths, getting a raw mark of 60 which may scale up to a 70.

To me, it's quite evident and is more wise to keep art based on the reasons above. First of all though, you need to decide if you want to do 10 or 12 units. As you still have time, I would wait till the end of next term next year, which is usually the point at which you can tell which subjects are working and which aren't. From then, if you do decide doing 10 units is appropriate, it's up to decide whether you keep Maths or VA.

 

[fnsndgfg]

Personally, I regret not dropping VA but it looks like your situation is very different to mine. Report marks are unscaled (at my school at least) so I do believe getting an 82 in maths is actually considerably better than an 89 in VA atar wise. However, I still think VA has many things going for it as stated by @icycledough, just wanted to mention some stuff on the other side of the argument.

 

[ExtremelyBoredUser]

Hi, I've started Year 12 content (technically still in year 11) and I can't decide whether I want to drop a subject and if so, which one. I am currently doing 12 units and THREE MAJOR WORKS (Drama, Society and Culture, Visual Arts) which is a lot but also I enjoy them more and much better at those three subjects than my other three (English Advanced, Maths Advanced, Biology). However, the workload is a lot and I don't know if I can handle the stress later on.

So I am contemplating dropping either Maths Advanced or Visual Arts. However, if I drop one, I won't have any back-up and all my units will count, which I'm scared of. But that means I will have more time to focus on my other subjects.

So MATHS:

• Maths is my worst subject and not as fun as VA (82 in my report)
• In university, I am most likely going to do some sort of film media degree, so maths won't necessarily be useful. But I am scared that I will change my degree and that will require some sort of maths knowledge (note: I am not horrible at maths, it is just not as good as compared to my other subjects)
• Also in Year 11, I did Maths Extension... is it risky just jumping straight from extension to none at all?

And VA:

• VA is the most hefty major work and will take lots of time.
• I am not very confident in my artmaking for VA (I'm fine with theory) but I have done ok (89 in my report)
• The scaling is terrible apparently

please help lol

A peer of mine did maths extension because he felt like it and he eventually dropped to adv and he recently just dropped maths all together. Personally I'd feel a bit off if I wouldn't do a core subject (math or english) but that is if I was average in all the rest, if you're doing great in your other subjects then why not? Math doesnt really overlap or synergise in terms of content or study routine (e.g physics has math content or you would study sciences in a similar fashion to math but the way you study english/arts is completely different).

There's definitely numerous cases of people doing no maths and still hitting 90+s and I've seen some people who did no maths get 99.95 ATAR, given they did come first almost all their subjects but that should give you ample encouragement that a high or decent atar is not out of reach.