is it better to do a degree in one subject or two?

[ssd]

we never went to uni, before I start!!

ds going in spt, but unsure whether to do politics or politics and economics

whats the advantages/disadvantages of doing both of these, can anyone help?

is one subject easier or more intense, are two subjects better from a job prospectus?

Joint honours is more work.

When I read joint honours (philosophy and psychology) we were warned that if we were aiming for a 1st we should switch to single honours as it was harder in joint honours.

I enjoyed joint honours and went on to do a joint discipline PhD and then work in interdisciplinary fields - so it worked for me. I've never been good at specialising.
But I wouldn't have given up my favourite subject (philosophy), and you couldn't do single honours philosophy at my university so everyone who read philosophy did it as joint honours.

So there may be good reasons for doing joint honours, but it is more work and harder to hit the top grades.

thanks thats interesting

Whether or not joint honours degrees are more work can depend on the modules you choose. For example, in a joint honours MFL degree you could make judicious choices of literature courses that are mutually reinforcing. And some skills, like translation, are far better developed across two or three languages.

Bit late to this conversation but I did Law and Economics at Glasgow and it opened lots of doors careers wise. My friends who did joint with Politics have also done very well. Among my classmates are politicians, academics, civil servants, investment managers, corporate and family lawyers and a few chartered accountants like me.

It is more work but absolutely achievable and all these subjects have a lot of complementary aspects. Not all Economics degrees are Maths heavy. It is a good question to ask when looking at course content or talking at open days. I assume your DS will have Higher Maths if he is in Scotland. That is plenty.

I have just started looking at options with my DD so although my experience is old I can say that it looks to still be relevant. Scottish Universities have a lot more flexibility to do more and narrow later or keep more subjects all the way up to Honours because of the 4 year structure. So I would advise doing joint at least to start if there is any doubt about the best course.

All the best to your DS for his future studies.

thanks howabout, thats really kind....same to your dd!

Also a bit late...

I started with single honours but ended doing a joint course. I was the only one who did the course. It was very hard in terms of exam timetables as I was the only one doing the combination - I had six exams over three days one year, one was a science and the other a humanities subject and the teaching (and consequently expectations) were very different for both and there was a huge amount of work.

I'm glad I did it, though by the end I felt like I had done two subjects - two dissertations is a nightmare to do and both were necessary if I wanted honours. Mine was half and half hence needing two dissertations. It didn't bother me to be going off to different lectures, though it did bother me that one half of my degree was on a totally different campus which took ages to get to (and there was ten minute allowed to move between lectures!)

I also had professional recognition to consider which I was able to sort, and probably this contributed to the amount of work as I could possibly have had more choice with regard to options if I was willing to let the professional recognition go.

The subjects I did aren't either of the ones your ds is thinking of doing, which likely will be a massive factor in terms of work etc but this is my experience.

Having said all of that, I found having the degree I did was a massive advantage to me in terms of what I wanted to do afterwards and kept my interest - single honours would have meant dropping out for me if I'm honest as the single subject alone just wasn't interesting enough for me. I wasn't prepared for the extra work though.

Ok. Very late. I misread the date in the op!