Joint honours students deserve more respect. Why, you might ask, when they are clearly just dithering between two subjects? As one particularly blunt tutor put it, I must only care about history to a limited extent compared to my single honours compatriots.
When even tutors view joint honours students as less committed to their cause, it becomes clear that we have been sidelined, brushed aside in favour of the ‘pure’ students. Obviously, not all tutors are like this; many are very understanding, with a few having even done joint honours degrees themselves. I find modern language tutors to be particularly accommodating – likely because us joint honours linguists form the majority of the cohort.
But for every tutor that tries to work with and around your degree, there is another who doesn’t attempt to understand how your module combinations work, leaving you to figure it all out for yourself. Yet, I would argue that joint honours degrees are not only more demanding than their single honours counterparts, but also more vital.
We tend to have heavier workloads and more packed timetables as tutors – and eventually our exams – require us to achieve a baseline standard (and beyond) in both subjects. There is also virtually no coordination between faculties, leaving the joint honours student either burdened with an insurmountable backlog of work or twiddling their thumbs all term. From personal experience, I had no History teaching for the entirety of last Michaelmas term, which was great until I realised that this meant I would have to do an entire year’s worth of content over two terms instead of three.
If we make it to the end of the year, we are then examined, not simply against fellow joint honours students but against our entire cohort, despite only having dedicated half of our time to each subject. This means that students juggling two languages are held to the same standard as those who have been immersed in only one for the entire year, and students who have spent half their time writing English essays are expected to produce an essay of the same calibre as those who live, breathe, and sleep English literature. The content required for exams is reduced, but the skills, which can only be cultivated over time, are just as needed.
Many of us don’t just feel sidelined on an academic front, but also on a personal level within our own cohorts. It is inevitable that you’ll become closer to the people with whom you spend more time. Doing fewer classes or tutorials in a department will unavoidably act as an impediment to feeling fully-integrated within a faculty. In drifting between your two departments, it can sometimes feel like you never truly belong to either.
Of course there are also upsides to this, as well as these downsides: instead of having only one department at your disposal, you now have two to reap the benefits of as and when you please. This is reflected in a greater flexibility for module choices – in my opinion the big advantage of a joint honours degree – with fewer requirements and restrictions imposed by the University. Sure, we might not become as specialised in each subject, but we gain something just as, if not more important: diversity. As a History and German student, I will (hopefully) emerge from my degree fluent in a language, able to analyse and enjoy literature from a different culture, and able to take part in historical debates about periods and places I genuinely find interesting. My skills in all three of these areas might not be as developed as they could have been had I chosen a single honours degree, but this breadth and flexibility will be more useful when entering the job market in its current state.
We also really do gain something from studying two subjects both separately and collectively. There will always be overlap between two disciplines, as well as areas where they can build on each other; reading Cicero’s speeches will surely enhance your understanding of modern political rhetoric, and studying linguistics will give you insight into the workings of a language that none of your peers will have. The arts, history, languages, literature, politics and philosophy are all so intertwined that it’s futile to separate them entirely. Instead, recognising where they bleed into one another – and by working in tandem rather than in competition – is what leads to the really interesting stuff. This intersectionality is, ultimately, the vital glue which holds the humanities together and fosters the development of new ideas.
So, to my tutor who said that I can’t like history as much as single honours History students, I offer an arguably applicable analogy. Would you say that a parent of two children loves each child less than the parent of one? Granted, they might not be able to devote as much time to each one, and the bags under their eyes might be darker. They might even have a favourite, depending on which one is the biggest nuisance at bedtime. But the parent of two isn’t doing a worse job than the parent of one. No, what they’re doing is just as, if not more, laudable.