Everything they didn’t tell you about combined honours before you started

Looking for the hard life? Choose combined subjects


Picking a course for uni that you’re truly set on can be hard. For me picking a course was hard as there were two subjects I wanted to study at degree level.

Some universities offer combined studies degree allowing you to choose two subjects from a list to study alongside each other, if you can’t choose. What they don’t tell you, is that you will be faced with timetable clashes, referencing inconsistencies and so many modules your head will spin.

Here are some of the struggles you’ll find being a combined student.

Timetable clashes

We know there’s going to be clashes all over our timetable. What makes it worse is it’ll be two core lectures for both your subjects that clash meaning the lecture time will have to change, and because there’s so few of you combined students you’ll feel bad when the lecture is changed to 9am Monday morning. You’ve ruined everyone’s week.

What will be worse than this is you’ll have one lesson that finishes at 10am and another at 11am but on the other campus. So you either leave one early to arrive at the other on time or you leave the first one on time but arrive at the other late, either way you’ll miss part of the lecture. Well thought out by the uni.

Modules

There’s so many modules you can do in both of your subjects all covering different areas, however you probably won’t be able to do half of them and here’s why:

  • That module is only offered to single honours students
  • You have too many credits to be able to take that module
  • Timetable clash
  • You haven’t done the prerequisite so you can’t take it
  • Your core options takes up your entire timetable

Business and Psychology student Briony Thompson, 21 finds it annoying not being able to certain modules: “It is a pain not being able to do certain modules but that’s because of the amount of credits given for certain modules more than because of the combination I took.”

The work

Because you’re doing two subjects it feels like you have twice the amount of work to do and it can get pretty confusing switching between the two when it comes to writing your assignments. Your bedroom will be like the library you’ll have more books than single honours students and you’ll ask yourself why did you want to study two subjects again?

You’ll have three assignments from your subjects all due in the same week and you’ll start tearing your hair out over where to start first. So you start writing your English essay but meanwhile you’re thinking about that History exam in two days, your mind starts to wander and before you know it you’ve wrote 300 words on The Civil War instead of Macbeth.

Different styles

It can hard to switch between writing in two different styles amongst your subjects. For instance Journalism is more about creativity coming up with your own story ideas, the angle the story will take and interviewing people, whereas Business requires more reading, gathering research and using quotes to back up your points. For me I often find it harder to write my Business piece because writing from imagination is much easier than theoretical stuff.

Traveling to campuses

So you have a lecture at St Peter’s then a seminar over City Campus. No problem there’s a free bus traveling to and from both campuses that takes around 10 minutes, seems good right? Wrong! The bus will turn up late, it’ll be so full you’ll have to stand and fall on everyone every corner you turn because the bus driver is mental, and it’ll stink of stale BO, so by the time you get to City Campus you’ll be so sick you just turn around skip your lesson and go home. I mean you could have walked but it’s the North East so it’s probably raining.

Journalism and English student Holly Brown, 20, hates the travel between St Peter’s and City Campus: “Traveling between campuses means I miss out on a lot of teaching time. This is made worse when buses don’t arrive on time or walking in the bad weather.”

Friends

At first it’ll feel hard to make friends especially when you’re in some many different places having your classes dotted all over two campuses. But in no time you’ll be making friends in your classes and because you have so many different classes you’ll meet more people. I’ve found that most of my friends at uni are combined people studying one of the subjects I am and that’s because you do the same modules and you create that bond of what it’s like being a combined student. So sometimes on your breaks you might find yourself chilling on your own as your combined pals are in their other subjects, so you feel like as isolated as Cady from Mean Girls on her first day at school.

Subject 1 v Subject 2

As you get so far down the line you’ll realise you definitely prefer one subject over the other. You’ll start losing interest in your other subject and the lectures and work will seem twice as boring. You’ll never stop complaining about this subject and you’ll constantly ask yourself why didn’t I do a single honours degree?

Holly much prefers the Journalism side to her degree rather than her English: “I prefer journalism because I prefer the creative side, the work for me personally is quite fun.”