tangerines
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2023
- Messages
- 50
- Gender
- Female
- HSC
- 2023
hi all, now that my hsc is done and dusted i wanted to come on here to share my experience doing more major works than anyone ever should, and give some advice/insight for anyone doing or thinking of doing subjects with a major work, whether that's one or more than one. last year, someone on this site made a great post with her experience doing multiple major works that is worth the read too, so i will mostly be revisiting and adding on to some of the points she made.
here are the subjects i took in my hsc (12 units total):
- English Advanced
- English Extension 1
- English Extension 2 (MW)
- Dance (MW)
- Drama (MW)
- Music 1 (MW)
- Visual Arts (MW)
firstly, why did i do five majors?? it seems like self sabotage not only doing as many major works as i did but also keeping an extra 2 units i didn't need for my atar. well, while i always had ambitions of getting a good enough atar to get into my first choice uni, there's a few reasons as to why i chose almost every subject to be one with a major work.
1. to be completely honest, i did not know what the concept of a major work was or that it even existed prior to starting year 11. this is because i am an international student who moved to sydney at the start of year 11 from overseas where we did the IB, I had never even heard of the HSC before. in my subject selection i literally just picked subjects that i was interested in and believed i could do well in. it took me the whole first year to properly understand what i had in store for me in terms of major works and by then obviously it was too late to go back. it just so happened that most of my subjects happened to include major works. at our school everyone did at least 1 major work, with the average being 2-3 and some doing as many as 4. i'm aware most schools don't even let kids do more than 1-2. if i had known about the workload i would definitely had not picked to do as many works as i did, but in hindsight have no regrets!
2. the way major works are designed fit my learning style very well. this may be because of my ADHD, which made doing purely academic subjects like biology or economics more challenging for me rather than something creative and performance-based more enjoyable and easier to understand content. of course with ADHD came difficulties with time management and organisation, which are vital to finishing a good major work, but i was able to do my best since my subjects were very interesting and rewarding to me, giving me the motivation to work hard and often. but major works are a challenge for anyone, i believe even doing one is an incredible feat. i'm awful at maths and sciences and if i had done those subjects i would've struggled immensely.
now, onto the experience and some advice based around that. i did not have a job or any extracurriulars outside of being school vice captain in year 12 and occasional dance training outside of school. i was only able to complete all these major works and present something i can be proud of because i had lots of time in and out of school to work on my projects, but even with a busy schedule it is possible to do many major works. my best friend did 4 majors and he had a job and took up acting gigs + did a uni course for the second half of year 12. he got nominations for both OnSTAGE and Callback, so it is possible to do well despite being busy.
since i did five majors, i tried my best to be consistent with a schedule where i would work on one subject per day of the week. for instance, mondays were drama days, tuesdays were dance days, etc. every creative subject has a compulsory academic/writing component, which i balanced with the kind of spaces i had access to throughout the day. for example, if tuesdays are dance days, then i would spend my study periods at school in the dance studio working on my dances, and then go to the library to study theory. this system worked out very well for me since i was able to consistently balance all components of each subject while making progress on my major works. at some point, i left my body of work for visual arts at school so that i would force myself to work on that at school and then go home and do theory rather than succumbing to the arguably more fun activity of painting all the time. here are some of the biggest advice points i have to give:
1. balance is vital.
not only in terms of balancing an academic + social + work life, but also in making progress on all components of a course. 4u english is the only major work i had that didn't involve more than one exam/submission. all of my other majors included both theory and practical exams: art had 2, music and drama had 3, dance had 4. like i said earlier, finding a routine where you can cover all bases will be helpful in making sure you are making steady progress on everything. getting high HSC marks will be very difficult if you are not at least decent in every component.
2. pick subjects you both find engaging and also think you'll succeed in.
it will be way too taxing to work on a project that you either don't care much about or struggle to do well in. i almost dropped some of my subjects many times throughout the year purely because the workload was too demanding for something i wasn't interested enough to stick with. if you care about getting a high atar, most people stay away from the creative subjects in particular because they scale pretty harshly if you don't get a band 6. this is because the people that pick these subjects are generally very good, and you'll see future USYD con students doing music as opposed to people that just think music is mildly interesting but have no performance/composition/theory skills. but if you excel in these subjects, scaling is no problem. if you're like most kids from my school who don't need an atar but want to finish high school, doing only interesting subjects is no problem. but make sure that you pick subjects that will provide experiences or skills that will be worth your time.
3. consistently get feedback and help from teachers and peers.
this is incredibly vital for making sure you stay on the right track. as someone who tends to misinterpret even basic instructions often, checking in and making sure not only are you meeting the course requirements correctly but also doing it well will make sure you get the results you expect. i made the mistake of not doing this for my drama IP, and the consequence was barely passing trials. luckily i realised this and made improvements good enough by the HSC and even ended up getting an OnSTAGE nomination, but i could've gotten a band 4 or lower had i not fixed my mistake. teachers and peers are there to inspire and motivate and support you, so don't shy away from asking for feedback and help. they can also let you know if your project is too ambitious or even the opposite. if the people at school are not helpful, you can always ask the people on BoS.
4. always be searching for resources and exemplary works.
some schools provide a plethora of resources, some don't. some subjects it's impossible to find comparable works to your's and it's hard to know if you're really exemplary or entirely missing the mark. but there are always people that do well in these subjects, so find people from your school, other schools, graduates, etc. online or in person and see what they did. take inspiration from as many works as you can, without plagiarising of course. NESA provides multiple examples of works in all subjects for all components on their site, so identify what things were successful and what wasn't. i was on the hunt for resources at every stage of my prelim and hsc years, all the way up to the submission week. look at not only exemplary works but also at mediocre ones.
i know this was a long read, but hopefully it can help any current and future students with deciding whether or not to start/keep a major work subject and how to manage it. it is possible to do this many majors and do well in the HSC; i got into my dream course at USYD and UniMelb and got the highest ATAR in my cohort despite having a crazy workload, doing mostly poorly scaling subjects and coming from a low ranking school.
good luck to all, i hope this was at least somewhat helpful and i am happy to answer questions or elaborate on any of my points!!
here are the subjects i took in my hsc (12 units total):
- English Advanced
- English Extension 1
- English Extension 2 (MW)
- Dance (MW)
- Drama (MW)
- Music 1 (MW)
- Visual Arts (MW)
firstly, why did i do five majors?? it seems like self sabotage not only doing as many major works as i did but also keeping an extra 2 units i didn't need for my atar. well, while i always had ambitions of getting a good enough atar to get into my first choice uni, there's a few reasons as to why i chose almost every subject to be one with a major work.
1. to be completely honest, i did not know what the concept of a major work was or that it even existed prior to starting year 11. this is because i am an international student who moved to sydney at the start of year 11 from overseas where we did the IB, I had never even heard of the HSC before. in my subject selection i literally just picked subjects that i was interested in and believed i could do well in. it took me the whole first year to properly understand what i had in store for me in terms of major works and by then obviously it was too late to go back. it just so happened that most of my subjects happened to include major works. at our school everyone did at least 1 major work, with the average being 2-3 and some doing as many as 4. i'm aware most schools don't even let kids do more than 1-2. if i had known about the workload i would definitely had not picked to do as many works as i did, but in hindsight have no regrets!
2. the way major works are designed fit my learning style very well. this may be because of my ADHD, which made doing purely academic subjects like biology or economics more challenging for me rather than something creative and performance-based more enjoyable and easier to understand content. of course with ADHD came difficulties with time management and organisation, which are vital to finishing a good major work, but i was able to do my best since my subjects were very interesting and rewarding to me, giving me the motivation to work hard and often. but major works are a challenge for anyone, i believe even doing one is an incredible feat. i'm awful at maths and sciences and if i had done those subjects i would've struggled immensely.
now, onto the experience and some advice based around that. i did not have a job or any extracurriulars outside of being school vice captain in year 12 and occasional dance training outside of school. i was only able to complete all these major works and present something i can be proud of because i had lots of time in and out of school to work on my projects, but even with a busy schedule it is possible to do many major works. my best friend did 4 majors and he had a job and took up acting gigs + did a uni course for the second half of year 12. he got nominations for both OnSTAGE and Callback, so it is possible to do well despite being busy.
since i did five majors, i tried my best to be consistent with a schedule where i would work on one subject per day of the week. for instance, mondays were drama days, tuesdays were dance days, etc. every creative subject has a compulsory academic/writing component, which i balanced with the kind of spaces i had access to throughout the day. for example, if tuesdays are dance days, then i would spend my study periods at school in the dance studio working on my dances, and then go to the library to study theory. this system worked out very well for me since i was able to consistently balance all components of each subject while making progress on my major works. at some point, i left my body of work for visual arts at school so that i would force myself to work on that at school and then go home and do theory rather than succumbing to the arguably more fun activity of painting all the time. here are some of the biggest advice points i have to give:
1. balance is vital.
not only in terms of balancing an academic + social + work life, but also in making progress on all components of a course. 4u english is the only major work i had that didn't involve more than one exam/submission. all of my other majors included both theory and practical exams: art had 2, music and drama had 3, dance had 4. like i said earlier, finding a routine where you can cover all bases will be helpful in making sure you are making steady progress on everything. getting high HSC marks will be very difficult if you are not at least decent in every component.
2. pick subjects you both find engaging and also think you'll succeed in.
it will be way too taxing to work on a project that you either don't care much about or struggle to do well in. i almost dropped some of my subjects many times throughout the year purely because the workload was too demanding for something i wasn't interested enough to stick with. if you care about getting a high atar, most people stay away from the creative subjects in particular because they scale pretty harshly if you don't get a band 6. this is because the people that pick these subjects are generally very good, and you'll see future USYD con students doing music as opposed to people that just think music is mildly interesting but have no performance/composition/theory skills. but if you excel in these subjects, scaling is no problem. if you're like most kids from my school who don't need an atar but want to finish high school, doing only interesting subjects is no problem. but make sure that you pick subjects that will provide experiences or skills that will be worth your time.
3. consistently get feedback and help from teachers and peers.
this is incredibly vital for making sure you stay on the right track. as someone who tends to misinterpret even basic instructions often, checking in and making sure not only are you meeting the course requirements correctly but also doing it well will make sure you get the results you expect. i made the mistake of not doing this for my drama IP, and the consequence was barely passing trials. luckily i realised this and made improvements good enough by the HSC and even ended up getting an OnSTAGE nomination, but i could've gotten a band 4 or lower had i not fixed my mistake. teachers and peers are there to inspire and motivate and support you, so don't shy away from asking for feedback and help. they can also let you know if your project is too ambitious or even the opposite. if the people at school are not helpful, you can always ask the people on BoS.
4. always be searching for resources and exemplary works.
some schools provide a plethora of resources, some don't. some subjects it's impossible to find comparable works to your's and it's hard to know if you're really exemplary or entirely missing the mark. but there are always people that do well in these subjects, so find people from your school, other schools, graduates, etc. online or in person and see what they did. take inspiration from as many works as you can, without plagiarising of course. NESA provides multiple examples of works in all subjects for all components on their site, so identify what things were successful and what wasn't. i was on the hunt for resources at every stage of my prelim and hsc years, all the way up to the submission week. look at not only exemplary works but also at mediocre ones.
i know this was a long read, but hopefully it can help any current and future students with deciding whether or not to start/keep a major work subject and how to manage it. it is possible to do this many majors and do well in the HSC; i got into my dream course at USYD and UniMelb and got the highest ATAR in my cohort despite having a crazy workload, doing mostly poorly scaling subjects and coming from a low ranking school.
good luck to all, i hope this was at least somewhat helpful and i am happy to answer questions or elaborate on any of my points!!
