At the start of Year 12, I was planning to study Medicine at university, so I chose English because I thought it would be an enriching contrast since my other A Levels were all STEM subjects. I had enjoyed English up to GCSE, and the A Level course promised more of what I’d enjoyed: more Shakespeare in the form of Hamlet and a unit on the Gothic, which I had enjoyed a lot in the form of Jekyll and Hyde at GCSE.

As I progressed through the course, I found that I particularly enjoyed works I was less familiar with: The Merchant’s Tale is brilliantly ironic and hilariously rude, whilst the poetry of T.S. Eliot led to some fascinating philosophical discussion. In terms of essay writing, the skills assessed feel like a natural progression from GCSE, with the addition of analysing critical discussions of a text and looking at different productions when it comes to drama.

Not long after the start of Year 12, I realised that I was enjoying English a lot more than my other subjects, so I decided that I would rather study English at university than Medicine. I would implore you to choose at least one subject purely because you love it, because I am so glad that I did.