Joint Honours help?

Hey!
Basically, I am aware that many universities offer specified joint honours degrees on their prospectuses, but I need some clarity on Universities' policies on transferring from a single honours course to a joint.
I've always been incredibly torn with what my favourite/best subject actually is, and was wondering if I applied to a course and decided I severely missed another subject down the line, I could pick up the other subject and finish my degree with a joint honours.
I know that obviously policies vary between universities, but I was wondering if anyone knew the general jist of most competitive unis. Personally, I'm aiming for Ox/Camb, Durham and UCL at the moment, as I have a strong academic background. Does anyone from these unis know their policies on this matter? For ref, I'm thinking abt History, and a potential joint honours with economics/maths/philosophy, but I am still quite undecided at the moment.
As a further question, does anyone know which universities allow you to simply choose two subjects and combine them to apply for joint honours?
Any help appreciated!

I'd say be careful, especially if you are ambitious about careers that are interested in subject specific degrees.

yo do hale the amount of work in any one subject in a joint degree than you do in a standard degree. You have to ask yourself how you can make up that other half degree because otherwise you are always going to be beaten by the person with a full economics degree or a whole history degree.

This is especially the case of yo choose two subject that aren't interrelated, so economics and maths might have some professional utility, economics and history, less so.

You will have to search for yourself on who offer what though.

Exeter do a flexible honours course where you can combine subjects. Also be aware of the risk of rejections from the likes of Oxbridge and Durham and ensure you have a couple of less competitive options. You dont want to be left without any offers after having 5 rejections.

I would say I'm not as fussed about career prospects in this stage, in the sense that I imagine my future career as something where a specialist degree is not necessarily required - for example governance, civil service, academia, or potentially a law conversion later on. For these employers, surely a graduate with experience of both historical methods of analysis and evaluation, as well as economic thinking would be more attractive than simply a history or economic student. Additionally they would have a wider range of skills and joint honours degrees often entail larger workloads so would seem more commendable.

Joint honours degree don't take more work, they just require context switching. You have too much faith in what employers interpret into a degree. They will just see you as a weak historian and a weak economist. It's also not a good foundation for an academic career, unless the subjects are very closely aligned.

I can think of extremely few jobs which require the specialist knowledge of a full history undergraduate entirely, and would reject someone who has the degree knowledge of both history and economics over this. OK if the career was an economist then perhaps but to a small extent. Employer these days put a greater emphasis on the competitiveness of the university. Oxford's website describes how joint honours degrees offer the potential to learn skills and insights between two related disciplines that single honours degrees don't have. In the instance of a history and economics degree, the two subjects are very closely related to that that economic history is a huge discipline itself - Cambridge has a department of economic history. In my opinion, the belief that a history and economics degree at somewhere like the University of Oxford makes you a 'weak historian' is just a load of rubbish. As I said before, an increasing number of jobs don't require one specific degree.

With regards to workload, I have heard from numerous individuals that joint honours degrees require a greater effort and number of hours of study, due to switching between the two departments and having to read more extensively. Cambridge also specifies that they are a great opportunity for those who have a shared passion for two subjects, and from what I gather Oxbridge highly emphasise choosing your degree entirely out of interest.

All your evidence is from what universities say (btw, I'm at Cam), what do employers say? Especially if you don't get into Oxbridge, where the Uni can take priority over the detail of the degree subject for employers?

The majority of employers these days don't ask for one specific degree. There is a significant emphasis whoever on having a broad range of skills and talents. Surely having a diverse degree background is more impressive than being a specialist in one degree with a field your not actually directly going into?

You seem very well 'informed' about this, despite asking the original question. If Joint degrees endowed such benefits, they'd be the norm. They aren't they are very much the minority, fo the reasons I've given above. Just because something is arguable, it doesn't mean it's what is happening out there.