You know the feeling you get right before you absolutely demolish a choc-top at the movies?

You carry it from the candy bar through the cinema to your seat, tear open that wrapping and your mouth salivates from the thought of inhaling it before the opening trailers finish?

Enjoying a choc top is a pretty much guaranteed experience, because you know what it’ll taste like, how much it will cost, and how much you’ll enjoy it before you even set foot in the cinema. A uni major, on the other hand, isn’t always a guarantee. How are you supposed to know that a choice you make in first year will continue giving you joy until graduation? So without further ado, here are my top ways to tell if your major is “the one”.

You Engage With Your Tutors And Classmates

For many units, you’ll find your typical tutorial class to be filled with shoulder shrugs, murmurs, and grunts. However, units you take that are specific to your major suddenly become a lot more interesting to you. You become interested in your classmates’ opinions on readings and lecture topics, and you stay back after tutorials to discuss further points with your tutors. You find yourself doing extra preparation for these classes, and in doing so, you have an opinion on everything and anything that is debated in class — making the seat next to you every week hot property for your fellow students.

You Attend All Of Your Classes

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the mid-semester slump at uni, where classes suddenly become a lot emptier, and the list of readings seems to multiply by enormous amounts every week. Units within your major, however, only grow in participation by yourself, as seemingly empty tutorial rooms provide for more interaction with your tutor one-on-one.

This enthusiasm to attend class is such a precious thing, and when you have it, you’ll know this is the major for you.

You Do Additional Research On Topics

Although it often seems impossible given deadlines and exams, passion and interest towards a unit can often lead to research just out of interest. Doing extra work and research within topics over each week of work can lead to a deeper understanding of ideas discussed in classes, and can also afford you wider knowledge about a topic and its influences.

Doing this extra work can also kick your essays up a notch, and won’t go unnoticed by tutors and lecturers when exam time swings around. This extra level of commitment and enthusiasm is a pretty telling sign of your enjoyment of the subject, and will luckily only benefit you in future assessments! Win-win!

You Look Forward To Entering Your Degree’s Workforce

One of the most rewarding things about having a true passion towards your major and degree is the prospect of entering the field professionally once you graduate. Third year — in an undergraduate’s case — is a great opportunity to make contacts in the industry, as well as start work experience placements to get a feel for what the real, post-uni working world is like!

Truly enjoying and engaging with what you study in third year will serve you well when it comes to those first few job interviews, as your interaction, knowledge and passion for your major will shine through and allow your hard work to speak for itself.

(Lead image: Clueless/Paramount)