Ladies and gentleman!
I present, the third and final part of this super short conjoint series!
Personally, I really love my conjoint degree. Both maths/science and accounting (the only business-y course I did in high school) has always appealed to me and I strongly believe that passion always plays a big role. However, they definitely aren’t for everyone and at the end of the day, its really up to you.
Love it or hate it hear the story from both sides.
As always, leave a comment down below if you have any questions!
Part 1: Introduction to conjoints: https://www.theinsideword.ac.nz/2018/10/conjoint-degrees-yay-or-nay/
Part 2: Pros and Cons of a conjoint: https://www.theinsideword.ac.nz/2018/10/conjoint-degrees-yay-or-nay-part-2/
xx
Cecilia
Hey Cecilia,
I currently study a conjoint of LLB/BA. I finish my BA in 2022 semester 2 and my LLB in 2023 semester 2. Once I complete my papers for my BA, can I apply for a graduation ceremony? Or do I have to wait until I finish my Law courses and then graduate both degrees at once? Please
I want to have a separate graduation ceremony as soon as I finish my BA.
Hi Theresa
Rupert from the Inside Word here. Thanks for your query. It’s an interesting one. Cecilia isn’t blogging with us this year, so I’d suggest that you send your query to the Arts Student Centre. Their email is : asc@auckland.ac.nz
All the best
Rupert
Hi Celilia!
If I take up a conjoint degree, will I get two degree certificates or just one degree certificate?
For ex- if I take up BCom/BProp Conjoint, at the end of my four years, am I going to get a separate BCom and BProp certificate or one BCom/BProp Conjoint certificate?
Hi Ella,
You will graduate with both degrees! So both certificates separately 🙂
hi Cecilia, if you do decide to drop your conjoint after a semester or the first year (2 semesters) how does it affect how the rest of your courses are planned out such as do you have to catch up on any missed papers of your major component from the first year in the second year? and when is it too late to drop a conjoint e.g. after 2nd/3rd/4th year
Hi Xena,
My understanding is that you graduate by passing all the papers required for your degree. This means whether or not you do a conjoint or drop it, in order to graduate with that degree, you much finish those missed courses. This also means you can drop your conjoint whenever as you will only receive that degree once you get all your required points. However, I’m not 100% sure about this and would advise you to contact your faculty adviser to be certain.
If you’re not able to keep up with the gpa, are you able to take it up as a double degree instead and cross credit the papers from the scheduled to make up the 360 points for each degree ?
Hi Veronica,
Not too sure what you mean by double degree? Do you mean taking them as two separate degrees (e.g. doing 4 years of engineering and 3 years of commerce separately?). If so, that’s a great question that I don’t have the answer to 😅! I would definitely recommend you having a chat to one of the course advisers in your student center and they would be able to give you some advice on that!
Hi! I know this quite a late comment for this video but I am currently deciding whether I should do a conjoint degree with engineering and commerce. I actually have not done commerce or economics since year 10 (I am year 13 now) and I was wondering how hard the material is to catch up on if I pick it up at uni? I’m not too sure if I like commerce that much either because I haven’t studied it past year 10! Also, instead of doing commerce as a whole new degree, could I do some commerce courses/papers as elective courses in the later parts of the engineering degree (I am not too sure how electives work).
Thank you 🙂
Hi India, one of the great things about first year commerce is that they don’t expect you to have any prior knowledge of the courses, meaning they’ll start teaching you from scratch so there definitely won’t be a problem taking it up in uni! Personally, the only ‘commerce’ paper I took in high school was Accounting up till level 3 and it did help quite a lot in ACCTG101, however I’ve never taken any economics papers before and I didn’t have much trouble picking up ECON151.
A suggestion:
ECON151 just happens to be a General Education course (ECON151G, same course, the G just stands for Gen Ed), so if you decide to go ahead with the conjoint, decide you don’t like it, you can drop the conjoint and ECON151 will just act as your Gen Ed (turning into ECON151G) and you won’t be wasting any time or money.
Similarly, if you go ahead with the Engineering degree alone, you could take ECON151G and if you enjoy it and/or decide to go ahead with the conjoint, you can switch that to ECON151.
Although, ECON151 is by no means indicative of the whole commerce degree and your intended major might not be economics, so not sure how helpful this may be. I would definitely recommend talking to a course adviser (both commerce and engineering) about this though (take my advice with a grain of salt)!
In terms of electives/papers, if you decide to go with just the Engineering degree there is a third year paper ENGGEN303 which is an engineering business paper. Depending on your specialization, you may be able to take some commerce papers (e.g. business analytics/finance ones for engineering science students) but as electives generally relate to your specialization you probably won’t be allowed to take commerce papers unless they directly relate (again, a grain of salt and confirm this with the course advisers!).
Hope this helped! 🙂
Hey 🙂 I was just wondering exactly how much more stressful doing a conjoint really is. Because I have also heard that you need to keep a 3.5 gpa in order to stay within the program and I’m extremely nervous to take up a conjoint and then realise halfway through that I cant follow through with this. But I need to make a decision and I would like to know what I’m getting myself into before I do. Are conjoints particularly difficult?
Hey Daksha! Well I guess a big part whether a conjoint will be difficult really depends on you (e.g. your personal academic ability) and also which conjoint you are doing (some will be more challenging than others). Not sure if this was a source of confusion but UoA’s gpa scale is out of 9 instead of 4 so 3.5 is between a C+ and a B- grade, so not too much higher than a pass (C-).
The biggest difficulty I would say is the workload. One extra paper honestly does pack on some extra weight and I’d say its one of the biggest downsides to a conjoint, but if you really enjoy the content I reckon it more than makes up for it.
Overall, it really depends on you. If you’re really passionate about both degrees and the only thing holding you back is that it will be difficult, I say just go for it. Give it a go! Don’t let fear stand in your way. If it doesn’t work out, that’s alright, I’ve had heaps of friends drop their conjoints after a semester or two just because they weren’t feeling it or that it was too much work. On the flip side, you can just start a single degree, test the waters, and if you’re feeling up to it, pick up a conjoint anytime during your degree.
Pop into uni and have a chat with one of the course advisers for your faculties, they’ll be able to give you some more specific advice. Have a talk with your family too and see what they think?
Hope that helped! 🙂