History v Accounting for the Leaving?

BreakingBadLad

Hi all,
I was just wondering which is an easier subject to do, History or accounting. In TY at the minute and was just wondering which would be a better choice. I did business for the junior cert (which i enjoyed), but i didnt do any of the accounting questions because i just found the other parts a bit handier to do. I reckon that accounting for the LC may be easier because ive been told that there is less to learn compared to history!
i also do HL Maths and HL economics if thats any help
Any help, appreciated!

Kingkumar

I would say accounting by far for me anyway. History is a lot of work...theres a lot to learn but also you will have to be able to write like a 4-5 page essay in ~40 mins. ( basically u have to do 4 essays for the history exam in about 3hrs) So if your good at memorising vast amounts of info and writing fast..and enjoy doing so pick history . I dont do accounting but i would say it would be eaiser as you do HL maths and HL economics
Ultimately pick whatever u like

ray2012

First of all, having HL maths wouldn't really help accounting to be honest. Yeah, accounting is full of numbers, but if you can function a calculator properly (simply add/subtract/divide/multiplication), you're sorted. People often say "Oh you do HL maths, you would find accounting simple!" which I find kind of stupid to be honest. The HL economics would barely (if ever) help either. It may come in handy in some of the theory questions which might be worth 5-10 marks, but that's it.

I do accounting, and honestly it's one of my least favourite subjects for LC. I really liked the accounting side of business for JC and I always did well in it, but the subject for the leaving cert is a complete different story. Yes, you still do your Trading Profit + Loss and Balance Sheet but it's in a lot more detail and you have adjustments which you must do. It can be extremely complicated and tedious work. But saying that, some people in my class find accounting really easy, and are almost banking an A1. I think it's a subject that some people just understand and others don't (like me :P)!

I don't do history but I know people studying it. As the above poster said, if you can write fast and a great interest in history I'd pick it. The exam is kind of ridiculous in the amount you have to write, but after 2 years of studying the subject you would probably find yourself able for it.

Saying all this, choose the subject which you think you'd find most interesting. That's my advice. There's nothing worse than doing a subject you despise and find extremely boring for 2 years!

user.name

I don't do accounting, but any accounting students in my maths class say they have nothing to do with each other, even finanical maths and account have nothing in common. I can offer you an insight into history. It is my favourite subject but is a lot of work. The only people I find do well in history have an interest in it. I love learning about history and studying history for the lc is almost a hobby rather than must do for me (sad haha). You need to write 3 essays in the exam and do a documents question in 2.50 hours, which is quite hard. You must be selective in what you study, you can't study the whole course in detail as it is quite vast. If you are good at essay writing in English then that is of some help, but overall you can get by in history without being good in history :P
only bonus is history has a research project you do in advance of the exam and its worth a handy 20%

Pk9712

I do accountancy at the moment and find if fine. The only maths in it is adding subtracting multiplication and then percentages and stuff which the calculator would do..The questions in the leaving cert dont change dramatically. Ratios come up every year(there in JC also) its pretty much the things you did in Jc just more in depth. Its more of a practice subject rather than a learning subject like history is. You just continue to do questions until you know the format and where to get the numbers..my class used the exam papers from day one in 5th year so your homework and classwork is in your exam papers which gets you use to the format etc..

SChique00

BreakingBadLad wrote: »

Hi all,
I was just wondering which is an easier subject to do, History or accounting. In TY at the minute and was just wondering which would be a better choice. I did business for the junior cert (which i enjoyed), but i didnt do any of the accounting questions because i just found the other parts a bit handier to do. I reckon that accounting for the LC may be easier because ive been told that there is less to learn compared to history!
i also do HL Maths and HL economics if thats any help
Any help, appreciated!

Hiya - I'm in fifth year atm and I do both History and Accounting, so hopefully I can give you a good perspective on both.
History is hugely time-consuming and a "heavy" subject to study but it is rewarding. I chose it because I really enjoyed History at JC level, but the exam structure is totally different at LC. You have to write three full length essays (that's around 4 A4s per essay) as well as answer a document question in the written exam, and you also complete a special study project on any area of history you want, which counts for 20% of your overall mark. Because the course relies so heavily on writing, a good grasp of English is a must, at least if you want to get a good grade at HL. The essays may also ask you to make personal judgements on the topic, so fluency and in-depth understanding is vital, not just regurgitating facts and dates. It's intense in that it's a broad course, but if you have a strong interest in History, liked it at JC and do reasonably well in English, I'd highly recommend it, for the special study alone

Accounting is altogether different. Maths doesn't come into the equation - I am a case in point as I despise Maths but do quite well in Accounting, so I wouldn't worry about what level of Maths you are doing as it is of no real advantage/disadvantage. If you didn't like the bookkeeping end of the Business course at JC then I wouldn't really recommend it to you. The main advantage of Accounting is that the questions are highly predictable - the first question on the paper is always the same (Final Accounts) and the questions themselves are almost always structured/phrased in exactly the same way - only the figures change. You could say therefore that Accounting doesn't really involve much "study" - just a lot of practising questions until you're super comfortable too. It's a good subject to have on hand if you're doing other subjects heavy on theory - there's only a small bit of theory in Accounting and it generally only makes an appearance in small questions. There's no real prior requirement for going into Accounting, but as you've said that you didn't like the bookkeeping end of JC Business, then I would seriously weigh up your other options. It's purely accounts, and if your interest was more in the theory end of things then I would recommend Business (which I gave up because it's very theory-heavy) or Economics instead.

All in all, I love both subjects, but for very different reasons. I have a genuine passion for History, but it takes up a lot of my time and energy as it's so dense. While I certainly don't want to be an accountant, I find Accounting very manageable because it just involves a bit of practise.

Hope I could give you a deeper perspective - just talk to your guidance counsellor, take your JC results into account and go with your gut instinct - you can always change your mind a few weeks into fifth year, which many people do (at least 10 people joined my History class after the Christmas exams!) Enjoy the rest of TY and get ready for a world of pain next September :P

BreakingBadLad

SChique00 wrote: »

Hiya - I'm in fifth year atm and I do both History and Accounting, so hopefully I can give you a good perspective on both.
History is hugely time-consuming and a "heavy" subject to study but it is rewarding. I chose it because I really enjoyed History at JC level, but the exam structure is totally different at LC. You have to write three full length essays (that's around 4 A4s per essay) as well as answer a document question in the written exam, and you also complete a special study project on any area of history you want, which counts for 20% of your overall mark. Because the course relies so heavily on writing, a good grasp of English is a must, at least if you want to get a good grade at HL. The essays may also ask you to make personal judgements on the topic, so fluency and in-depth understanding is vital, not just regurgitating facts and dates. It's intense in that it's a broad course, but if you have a strong interest in History, liked it at JC and do reasonably well in English, I'd highly recommend it, for the special study alone

Accounting is altogether different. Maths doesn't come into the equation - I am a case in point as I despise Maths but do quite well in Accounting, so I wouldn't worry about what level of Maths you are doing as it is of no real advantage/disadvantage. If you didn't like the bookkeeping end of the Business course at JC then I wouldn't really recommend it to you. The main advantage of Accounting is that the questions are highly predictable - the first question on the paper is always the same (Final Accounts) and the questions themselves are almost always structured/phrased in exactly the same way - only the figures change. You could say therefore that Accounting doesn't really involve much "study" - just a lot of practising questions until you're super comfortable too. It's a good subject to have on hand if you're doing other subjects heavy on theory - there's only a small bit of theory in Accounting and it generally only makes an appearance in small questions. There's no real prior requirement for going into Accounting, but as you've said that you didn't like the bookkeeping end of JC Business, then I would seriously weigh up your other options. It's purely accounts, and if your interest was more in the theory end of things then I would recommend Business (which I gave up because it's very theory-heavy) or Economics instead.

Thanks for the advice, i didnt bother doing the book keeping end of the JC business exam out of pure laziness (plus i knew the theory/small questions well). I tried switching to business, but i cant due to my schools timetables options ( i would have to give up french which i really enjoy). I'll give accounting a go over the next few weeks and if i find it to difficult ill switch back to history!!

++Thanks everyone else for the advice too!

CookieMonster.x

BreakingBadLad wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, i didnt bother doing the book keeping end of the JC business exam out of pure laziness (plus i knew the theory/small questions well). I tried switching to business, but i cant due to my schools timetables options ( i would have to give up french which i really enjoy). I'll give accounting a go over the next few weeks and if i find it to difficult ill switch back to accounting!!

++Thanks everyone else for the advice too!

+1 for accounting but it might be hard for a while. Once you get it it becomes quite easy.

Chavways

I did accounting and even with 2 useless teachers and not having a clue what was going on for 2 years, I managed a B1. I worked my arse off for the last 2 weeks and it all fell into place. It is very easy if you work at it. An awful lot of the questions are very similar(farm,club,service firm to name a few) and there's loads of choice on the paper.

I didn't do history but a lot of my friends did and they felt it was extremely difficult. There's looooooooads of information to be learned and then you have to spit it all out onto a page in the exam while being under serious pressure time wise.

If I was you I'd definitely pick accounting.It's very easy to predict what should come up and once you learn the format of the questions away you go. Work away at it for the 2 years and you should breeze an A in the L.C.

paddzdaman

Hi I would anyone give me advise on geography or accounting ... I would be good at both subjects and am good at route learning and working with numbers... I enjoyed both subjects at JC but the LC accounting teacher is very poor and the geography teacher is very good .....TBH Im really looking for the best possibly grade from either of these subjects thanks