History has always been one of my favorite subjects and was almost at the very top of my list of things to study when I was an undergrad (graduated two years ago) but I ultimately went with Linguistics/Japanese because I did not want to spend another year (2 courses) on US History. Anyways, I of course am still greatly interested in history and read/watch historical stuff on my free time, but I was wondering what I would have been doing if I majored in History.
I took a couple history courses as an undergrad (mainly Japanese/Asian history) so I was wondering if having history as a major would have just been the same as that (reading, writing, etc) but just more courses and more specific topics/events/etc. When a history student is in his final year, are there any major difference between courses and what he's studying from when he was just starting. I'm never going to have a degree in history, but perhaps if I knew what went into acquiring one, I might be able to feel like I had one if I did all the things a history student would.
Not exactly history, I know, but I entered my Star Wars book collection in my university's book collection contest and had to write a short essay about the significance of my collection and the judges (I got second place-undergrad) praised my historiographical view of the Star Wars universe and historical periods (my collection is mainly focused on Jedi/Sith conflict and history pre-ABY [ie c.25,000BBY-1BBY]).
I'm not totally sure what you're asking, but I would think that what history students do depends on your university and its requirements for your specific degree (there are probably different requirements for a straight History degree vs. a joint History/Japanese degree vs. a joint History/Linguistics degree). For example, I double majored in History and a language, and in my final year wrote one 10k word thesis for each department. But I had friends who doubled in History and something else like Politics, and they had completely different requirements to fulfill.
It's great that you're continuing to read and learn about history; if you want to feel even more like a history student, I suggest trying to write about the topics that interest you, either for yourself or for publication. Much of my degree was less about memorizing the facts of history and more about learning how to think critically and examine historical trends.