JC subject combination-China Studies or Chemistry?

A student who has her mind set on studying Physics, Economics and Maths in junior college is somewhat torn between choosing China Studies and Chemistry as the final entry for her subject combination. A senior who who goes by the online moniker havok_ex advises as follows:

"In my opinion Chemistry is much more difficult than China Studies. I never took it before but I was in the same class with friends who offered H1 English Literature, General Studies in Chinese and China Studies in English. We were quite a weird mix. It depends on where you wish to proceed after A-levels. Having both Physics and Maths is more than enough to open doors to almost all courses in university. So you don't have to pick Chemistry even if you choose to enter the science or engineering route in university. From what I have seen, my classmates were generally lazy but did pretty okay for China Studies so I don't think its too difficult.


I think lots of people do pursue Chemistry. Chemistry is really taxing in my opinion. This subject employs lots and lots of memory-based as well as application skills. I had good affinity with Physics, Maths, GP and Literature, however I always hated Chemistry. For Physics, you could derive formulas from the definition and vice versa. You could also derive the shapes of different graphs and relationships from those formulas itself, so there wasn't much to memorize. I invested much more time into Chemistry but scored even worse for it than my other subjects. All that said, I regretted taking chemistry. My JC was a neighbourhood JC so we didn't have much options in terms of subject combinations. It was either 3 sciences and 1 humanities or 3 humanities and 1 science. I wanted to take 2 of each but wasn't permitted to do so.


Maths and Physics are critical in my opinion because a large portion of university spots are allocated for science and engineering related disciplines. Beyond these 2 subjects, you should choose something you are much more interested in. In any case, you can look up the syllabus on SEAB's website."



THANK YOU HAVOK_EX FOR ALLOWING US TO REPRODUCE YOUR THOUGHTS.


The Czar (Site Founder)

Dated 13 November 2014


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