Choosing the Right Major

Students and Families

The Parent Section

Education Funding Alternatives

Learning Lifestyles

Pastoral Care in Tertiary Study

Formatting & Citing References

Word 07 referencing
Citation Styles
- APA
- AMA
- Turabian
- Chicago
- MLA
- Harvard

Different Tertiary Paper Types

Other Useful Resources

Student Discounts
Maintaining Personal/Education Records
Learning Styles
Student Wiki’s
Gadgets for Students
Open Source Software

Choosing a major can be a major – dilemma that is! With the increasing competition for places in University and College courses students are expected to make choices earlier than ever in their education, often in year 10 or 11, to maximize their chances of acceptance to the school of their choice. That can seem daunting to a person who doesn’t really know what they want in terms of career at the ripe old age of a teenager.

It doesn’t have to be that stressful though. Gearing studies in a certain direction is possible while still keeping options for future studies open. Most of us have a propensity for left or right brain thinking. That is to say if you are brilliant in English, Math is often not your thing and visa versa. Knowing this, courses can be chosen for your skills (bearing in mind most of us actually like the things we are good at and loathe the things we aren’t good at) right from early on in a student’s course of study.

For the last years of high school students should steer their courses toward a general but somewhat specifically guided direction. Sciences combined with Math are good choices for those technical, logistical thinkers and Arts and Humanities topics are great for creative thinkers. Stick with this until you get to tertiary education and then choose conjoint study or a major with future divergent options, if you still aren’t sure of exactly which direction you want to take.

Even the top (and most competitive) subjects like law, accounting and medicine allow for first and second year students to take a number of courses which can lead in other directions if the student discovers that one thing isn’t really what they thought it would be, or it’s too long, or it’s too hard or for whatever reason. Basically right up to this point it really isn’t a bid deal to change direction.