What is the view on joint degrees as opposed to single subject first degrees by top tier consultancies? E.g. is a joint honours in, say, maths and marketing, more or less valued than a pure maths degree? Or to put it another way, is depth of study more valued than breadth of study?Obviously the quality of candidate is very important, and we must consider the skills of the role applied for, but in general and all other factors being equal should an under grad go for joint or single degree if they aspire to top tier job?

Always a "pure" subject as first degree. You can specialize latter. Using your example, Math is a much harder subject than Marketing, so it would be way more valuable on your CV.

Well, it depends. If it is Leisure Studies and Psychology, then that probably isn't such a great degree. On the other hand, many prominent people studied PPE at Oxford or Cambridge, and Maths and Philosophy is an archetypal intellectual degree which should develop excellent powers of logical thought. Similarly, I wouldn't have thought Engineering and Management from Oxford would do you any harm, and French and German from a good university is unlikely to be viewed less favourably than either singly.In summary:1. People might be puzzled by unrelated subject pairings2. If either subject contains "Studies" then exercise caution3. If it is Double Honours rather than Joint then credit is due!

I studied French and Russian and we easily had way more work than those who studied just one language! Thinking about it now it perhaps would have been much easier to have done one - half the vocab - twice the time in the 1 country!

Mary,Nonsense! I stuied single honours German - we went into a *much* greater level of detail then those who stuied two languages. Klappe halten!

See earlier comment on difference between Double and Joint Honours. Also, if you do one language it is easy to focus!

As for double degrees... (and sorry for stealing the thread). I studied business as my 1st degree and law as my 2nd. I’m going soon for an interview with top-tier MC and they might ask me why I decided to pursue law. The honest answer is that I was just curious whether it’s really so hard to study law as everybody says. I just wanted to check it out whether indeed it’s so tough. So I have no big story behind my 2nd degree. If I answer honestly is it going to sound stupid? Should I develop some big story for this?

"See earlier comment on difference between Double and Joint Honours. Also, if you do one language it is easy to focus!"Do you speak from experience?

I did engineering and a language. Or with a language, strictly speaking, as the language was a minor element.Double Honours is unarguably hard(er) work.As for the focus, deduction and personal opinion.

As for double degrees... (and sorry for stealing the thread). I studied business as my 1st degree and law as my 2nd. I’m going soon for an interview with top-tier MC and they might ask me why I decided to pursue law. The honest answer is that I was just curious whether it’s really so hard to study law as everybody says. I just wanted to check it out whether indeed it’s so tough. So I have no big story behind my 2nd degree. If I answer honestly is it going to sound stupid? Should I develop some big story for this?

As for double degrees... (and sorry for stealing the thread). I studied business as my 1st degree and law as my 2nd. I’m going soon for an interview with top-tier MC and they might ask me why I decided to pursue law. The honest answer is that I was just curious whether it’s really so hard to study law as everybody says. I just wanted to check it out whether indeed it’s so tough. So I have no big story behind my 2nd degree. If I answer honestly is it going to sound stupid? Should I develop some big story for this?

"Double Honours is unarguably hard(er) work. "....well actually it is argubale....that's why we're having this discussion....

Do you understand the difference between Double Honours and Joint Honours?Where the term is applied correctly, and in accordance with the QAA National Qualifications Framework, double honours programmes include study up to honours level in each programme.

Dear nonsense,we had to achieve exactly the same linguistic level as those you had studied single honours (I was at Bristol) - there was no leeway whatsoever just because you were studying two languages - same exams, same grading.Sorry - it was just generally accepted to be the case at Bristol.