Two dissertations?

I think you need to give us a bit more information about the pros and cons of this- How many credits is each dissertation worth? Would you miss out on other valuable modules by doing this? Is this common for people on your course?

Dissertations are very time consuming and can be very stressful. Would you have to conduct any experimental research? How would this fit into the time frame?

Are you considering this purely to try and avoid exams? Dissertations can be difficult and stressful too, and it may be difficult to organise seeing two supervisors.

Would they have the same deadline date? Could you end up having to do lots of corrections for two dissertations at short notice?

I think the negatives of this are very likely to outweigh the positives and trying to manage two dissertations could drag your overall grade down unless you manage your time very well.

Oh sorry I figured it worked near enough the same in all unis for some reason.

Sooo a dissertation is worth 30 credits.

All I need in 3rd year in one subject (criminology) is to do 30 credits. So doing a dissertation over the year would cover it. Or I could two normal modules which are 15 credits each.
All modules that are not dissertations are worth 15 credits.

In my other subject (communications) we need to do 45 credits in 3rd year - I have no idea why it's different.
Which could mean I could do a dissertation in this and do one other module OR do three normal 15 credit modules.

I've had a look at the modules on offer and I'm really interested in some of the communications ones and think that there is more choice on a dissertation topic for criminology and that I would get more guidance.
So I'm swaying towards doing a dissertation in criminology and doing 3 modules in communications.
The good thing about it too is that if I did a dissertation in just criminology and 3 normal modules in communications, I would have to do two modules in 1st semester and only one in second so it would give me a lot of time to work on my dissertation.
Now I'm writing it down I'm thinking a lot more clearly.

Might be naive to think so but I thought it might be a positive that I have 2 things to work on throughout the entire year and not having to go into uni much rather than one dissertation and two modules that have lots of assessment to do within a a couple of months - at my uni we start beginning of october and most things have to be handed in at the end of november!

Yeah, every university is different. At mine, a dissertation is 40 credits and a normal module is 20, but if I were doing joint honours and two dissertations, I think I'd have to still do 4 other modules- which could mean a lot of coursework to juggle. It sounds like you'd have less coursework regardless.

It sounds like doing a dissertation in criminology and doing other modules in communications could work out well for you.

The problem your idea of doing 2 and working on them together is that progressing with your dissertation can also rely on your supervisor. Just as an example, for mine-

-Collected data last summer with assistance from university technical staff etc
-October, met with supervisor to agree project structure/title/scope
-November, had finished my intro and methods and needed to do my statistics in order to progress. However, my supervisor couldn't meet to discuss stats until Decemeber. During December I also discussed some specialised stats with another accademic.
-Christmas Holidays, I had a fairly heavy cw load with multiple January deadlines. I also needed to complete my statistics for review in early January.
-Late January, I finished and handed in my first draft for my supervisor's comments. I was given the impression he would return it ASAP, for me to make corrections. In reality, he did not return it until the last possible moment, two weeks before the final deadline.

Basically, I wasn't able to work at my own pace at all, as a lot of the timings were dictated by my supervisor. With two supervisors to deal with, this could make things more complicated. Depending on how supervisors comment on drafts, you could end up with two lots of last minute corrections to do at the same time, which for me would have been really hard.

Also, if I am reading right, if you do two dissertations, you would only have 1 taught module. I think I would feel I was not getting the full benefit of my final year in this situation. Although dissertations are valuable, skills and knowledge from other modules are too.

That said, if the idea of lots of independent work really appeals, then by all means go ahead. Your data collection may also be less difficult/time consuming than mine/my friends was in the general area of biological sciences. However, even questionaire type methods can be time consuming to conduct/analyse.