This text is part of the GCSE options teacher pack.
Me and My GCSEs: Inspiring The Future volunteers explain how GCSE choices have helped shape their careers
Use these quotes in your school option packs/information or as a starting point for discussion with students.
Drama
“Strangely you don’t realise how many skills Drama helps you develop. Working on a play helped me understand how to manage my time and deliver on short term projects. Directing helped me communicate my ideas to a variety of people wanting to achieve the same goal and performance helped me understand how to best present myself to an audience for sales pitches and public speaking opportunities. Above all drama helped me hone my creativity skills which are becoming more and more desired by employers.”
Employer Relationship Manager
History
“History is a great choice for someone who is interested in a career in law and particularly, a career as a barrister. You will learn how to examine different types of sources, including. For example, pictures, newspaper articles from the time, or books and to discuss which are the most persuasive as a record of what happened in the past. You will use that skill as a lawyer when you are looking at evidence and developing arguments about which pieces of evidence are most important and what those pieces of evidence tell you and the Court about what happened.”
Lawyer
IT
“I get legal protection for the inventions our engineers come up with so that other companies have to pay us when they want to use our inventions. I use my GCSE IT a lot at work. Like most office jobs, my job involves using word processing, internet searching, spreadsheet, database and presentation software. I also often need to know about how computer systems work so I can understand inventions which involve them.”
Senior Patent Attorney
Geography
“You can gain lots of transferable skills through studying Geography such as research skills, data analysis and team work. It’s important to be aware of what is going on in the world around you as this impacts on businesses and the economy. Understanding people and cultural differences is relevant to a role like marketing where we need to understand our customers’ demographics and needs.”
Marketing Manager
RE
“Religious Education is a helpful subject to study if you want to become a lawyer. The religious education course requires you to understand how religious teachings affect human behaviour and you will discuss how some teachings are open to different interpretations. Similarly, as a lawyer, you have to understand how the law is intended to affect human behaviour to be able to decide whether someone has broken the law. You will also argue about what the law is or means. When doing this you will be able to use the skills you learn from debating what different religious teachings mean.”
Lawyer
Design Technology
“Design Technology and Design Technology Communications [Technical Drawing] played a big part in my development, going into A Levels from GCSE and then onto university where I studied Architectural Technology. Creating working drawings that interface with our systems and buildings plays a big part in our industry and my current role.”
Training Manager
Balance of subjects
“I do draw upon transferable skills I gained at school every single day in my working life, but one subject doesn’t give me more of an advantage than another.”
HR Business Manager
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