What is a joint honours course?

Hi everyone! :smile:

A big difference between school/college and university is that you will be studying fewer subjects in much greater detail during your degree.

However, there are options to study two or more subjects alongside each other - these are called joint or joint honours degrees.

If you are considering a joint honours degree, do respond with any questions you have about what they are and how they work.

One of our friendly student ambassadors, Owain, will also be adding to this thread with his experience studying BSc Mathematics and Economics with a Placement Year to give you his perspective on what it is like to be a join honours student!

- Izzie (Global Recruitment Team UK)

Reply 1

UniofReading

Official Rep

Original post by UniofReading

Hi everyone! :smile:

A big difference between school/college and university is that you will be studying fewer subjects in much greater detail during your degree.
However, there are options to study two or more subjects alongside each other - these are called joint or joint honours degrees.
If you are considering a joint honours degree, do respond with any questions you have about what they are and how they work.
One of our friendly student ambassadors, Owain, will also be adding to this thread with his experience studying BSc Mathematics and Economics with a Placement Year to give you his perspective on what it is like to be a join honours student!
- Izzie (Global Recruitment Team UK)

Hello!

My name is Owain and as Izzie mentioned I am in my final year of studying Mathematics and Economics with a Placement year.

I best start with how I came to picking this course! I always had in my mind that I wanted to Mathematics. But after speaking to a few family members they mentioned the idea of studying Mathematics with something else. Their main reason for this was having a break from mathematics but I will mention this a bit later. I looked at the options and I saw there was a course with Economics. I never actually did Economics at A level but have always enjoyed reading the news regarding economics so thought this would be the perfect choice for me. So I went for it and I have never looked back.

The first thing you have with a joint honours is balancing the both disciplines. As mentioned, I love the break it gives you from each course but there is so many transferable skills between the both. When I talk about break I mean with some of the questions in maths its nice sometimes to have a break and look at some words and graphs in economics and also vice versa.

I find doing the both there is not much of a difference in workloads, but there is a difference in how I do them which is very refreshing. With mathematics there is lectures and problem sheets, which is similar to economics but economics requires more reading and using my knowledge in different ways. I am also fortunate that as mentioned, they do compliment each other. For example in economics we use a lot of derivatives which is useful as I do a lot of them in Mathematics but it is also useful how they are used in a true `real life` sense!

I think another benefit I have found with doing a joint honours is that you get to meet so many people and make friends on the both courses! It is cool because you get to meet students who are passionate about Mathematics and then in another lecture find students who are passionate about Economics. It is great because for example in economics I was struggling with a topic and one of my fellow students helped me, and I have never forgotten that. So when someone was struggling with derivatives I made sure to help them which is the great thing about university!

I would also say it expanded my options for when it came to picking a placement, as technically I had two pools to pick from. I was not originally on the placement year course but there was an opportunity that came up through the economics department and I was super fortunate to get it!

I could honestly discuss my experience of studying a joint honours course. Please feel free to ask me any questions or to expand on any points.

Thank you!
Owain :smile:

Mathematics and Economics with a placement year

Reply 2

Kiddo276

I did a joint honours degree. But the subjects were so closely tied together, it was like studying one degree. I didn't notice too much of a difference, either way, my fulfilment was met regardless.

Currently doing a second degree, again, joint honours, it's a combo degree so it's multiple subjects, not just two. And it's great for keeping your interest in studying knowledge for the sake of learning as opposed to getting a pass grade for the next steps of a graduate scheme.

Reply 3

UniofReading

Official Rep

Original post by UniofReading

Hi everyone! :smile:

A big difference between school/college and university is that you will be studying fewer subjects in much greater detail during your degree.
However, there are options to study two or more subjects alongside each other - these are called joint or joint honours degrees.
If you are considering a joint honours degree, do respond with any questions you have about what they are and how they work.
One of our friendly student ambassadors, Owain, will also be adding to this thread with his experience studying BSc Mathematics and Economics with a Placement Year to give you his perspective on what it is like to be a join honours student!
- Izzie (Global Recruitment Team UK)

Hi everyone!

I am linking a YouTube video from UoR's channel which gives some more information about Joint Honours degrees. I would really recommend checking this out!

Why study a Joint Honours degree?

I hope this is helpful!

Hattie😊
4MSci Speech and Language Therapy