Cant decide between two courses

Good morning everyone,

I wanted to ask about some advice regarding two degrees. I'm applying for university this year for 2023 entry and i was wondering how do i decide between two degrees.

Law with criminology:
Pro- Law is interesting to me and I may want to become a criminal barrister when i'm older. I also want to study a joint degree as I get bored quite easily if I only study one subject.
Con - i'm only interested in criminal law plus i feel like i won't be able to cope with the workload

Criminology:

Pros- Wayyy more interesting than law to me, probably want to do something with crime when I'm older (maybe police detective or crime analyst), I've looked at a couple modules and they seem like something i would want to study.

Cons- Single subjects make me get bored easily, criminology i've heard it's not the best degree to do as the career prospects arent the best.

I'm not really sure what to do so I wanted to ask for some advice. Any advice would be appreciated

Hey! i don't have any expereince in the specific subject set but i'm in a similar position to you. From the pros and cons list you've given i'd recommend a joint degree to you, there's a lot of wiggle room within faculties after first year if you needed to alter this due to a too high workload. The job prospects (and salaries ) would be considerably better with a law degree and your criminology knowledge as an addition to that. That being said, if you're looking for a bit of an easier time studying, then just choosing criminology would be the way to go. But as you said, might not be challenging enough to keep you from getting bored. And then after those years of hard work if you can't get a job you'll be really proud of then it was all for nothing. I hope i've helped even a little, sorry i don't know too much about your subjects tho! good luck x

Hey, I did a joint degree in psychology with criminology and now going down the detective route myself. Usually with a joint degree it’s not a 50/50 weighting of each subject. I know my course was about 75% Psychology 25% Criminology. However, it is very important to highlight it depends on where you study as each course is very different. I can't comment much about law as I have never studied it but I enjoyed doing a joint degree as like you said I enjoyed not sticking to one subject. With any course you will get a high volume of work so don’t let that put you off law. If It’s something that your considering in the future it’ll keep your options open!

I originally wanted to go down the psychology route and ended up not getting the grades for the straight psychology route at my uni. I then found the criminology side more interesting then psychology so not getting on that course was probably for the best haha. The Uni held a careers day and the Metropolitan police came along and told us about the DHEP DC pathway and applied and I'm due to start very soon!

Every uni is different so there might not be the same modules and I graduated 2 years ago so my course could have already changed but we studied modules like, understanding criminal behaviour, the criminal justice system, penology, policing, ect so was quite a lot over the three years. In first year there were more criminology modules then in my final year there was only one module, but was more specific to an area of crime such as sexual and violent crimes or cybercrime

Good morning everyone,

I wanted to ask about some advice regarding two degrees. I'm applying for university this year for 2023 entry and i was wondering how do i decide between two degrees.

Law with criminology:
Pro- Law is interesting to me and I may want to become a criminal barrister when i'm older. I also want to study a joint degree as I get bored quite easily if I only study one subject.
Con - i'm only interested in criminal law plus i feel like i won't be able to cope with the workload

Criminology:

Pros- Wayyy more interesting than law to me, probably want to do something with crime when I'm older (maybe police detective or crime analyst), I've looked at a couple modules and they seem like something i would want to study.

Cons- Single subjects make me get bored easily, criminology i've heard it's not the best degree to do as the career prospects arent the best.

I'm not really sure what to do so I wanted to ask for some advice. Any advice would be appreciated

Good morning everyone,

I wanted to ask about some advice regarding two degrees. I'm applying for university this year for 2023 entry and i was wondering how do i decide between two degrees.

Law with criminology:
Pro- Law is interesting to me and I may want to become a criminal barrister when i'm older. I also want to study a joint degree as I get bored quite easily if I only study one subject.
Con - i'm only interested in criminal law plus i feel like i won't be able to cope with the workload

Criminology:

Pros- Wayyy more interesting than law to me, probably want to do something with crime when I'm older (maybe police detective or crime analyst), I've looked at a couple modules and they seem like something i would want to study.

Cons- Single subjects make me get bored easily, criminology i've heard it's not the best degree to do as the career prospects arent the best.

I'm not really sure what to do so I wanted to ask for some advice. Any advice would be appreciated

Hi @username54!

I do not have any experience with Law or Criminology myself but to offer some advice I’d recommend choosing the degree that you’ll enjoy the most. To me, that is the most important part.

Every degree will have a high workload, but you can apply strategies to help make it more manageable.

As you’ve mentioned it is important to consider career prospects. Consider which degree option will leave you with the most options after graduation. You’ll want to make sure that the degree improves your employability so it’s worth doing.

Most unis’ websites will have an ask a student / UniBuddy function. I’d recommend speaking to current law and criminology students on there to get a real feel for the student’s perspective of the course. Open days can also really help with this, so I’d recommend attending a few of unis you’re interested in so that you can speak to lecturers, students and get a feel for the departments.

Hope this helps!

- Tineke
Lancaster Physics Graduate

Hey @username54

I study Criminology at Lancaster and absolutely love it! I was in a similar situation choosing a degree, where I was only was really interested in criminal law. I ended up going for criminology in the end because I was more interested in it. Also, I knew that if I did decide to become a lawyer later in life, there are conversion courses you can do after uni (not the quickest or cheapest route by far though from what my personal research shows). Some unis also offer Criminology with Law which means that you do law modules within a Crim degree. This normally isn't a qualifying law degree but may be worth looking into?

I always say to people applying for uni that the number one thing to look at is your course. You spend a fair amount of time studying and it's sooo much easier to study if you enjoy it.

Hope this helps and any questions please ask!!
Kat

That sounds cool, how was the workload

Like most courses it is a lot but it is always manageable, even if at the time you don't think so haha!

My main tip would be try not leave anything to the last minute. I definitely did and could have saved myself a lot of stress if I wrote up lecture notes after the lecture or revised sooner. Use your first year to really figure out what works for you as it doesn't go towards your final grade. Go over the lecture with friends- makes it easier to talk things through ect. Some people did better when they left it to the last minutes (wouldn't advise it though haha). Don't forget to have fun though and not to stress out about the work. Everything will work out! I can tell you're already getting worried but trust me A levels were worst in my opinion and I even did a masters during Covid haha!