Welcome back to another blog post!
Today I will be going over the good and the bad of doing a BE and BCom conjoint!
ground rules
With a conjoint, the duration of your degree will inevitably be longer than one of the average student. For example, I need to study for a whole five years compared to four. If you are planning on taking a more complicated conjoint like Engineering x Science, then you’re looking more at the range of six years. So yes. You will have to graduate at least a year after your engineering cohort, which kind of sucks if you are like me and majority of your friends are in engineering and the same year as you :< (<- BUT you could also take it as an opportunity to make new friends!)
Another major turnoff with conjoints is that you have to take extra papers in one semester. We are talking an average of 9-10 papers over the two semesters, which is very common with conjoint students so it is quite the time commitment, especially considering the amount of blood, sweat and tears you put in to your engineering degree (personally, I feel as sometimes I put my commerce papers on the back burner).
A big jump scare for me in a conjoint was that you not only take less engineering papers, but less conjoint (in my case, commerce) papers. A great example would be electives in Part II, a normal Part II engsci gets two electives, but conjoints only get one. Sure, you can take another paper but it is not compulsory to finish your degree. If you are really curious about the composition of a BE/BCom degree, check out the UOA degree planner!
But, if you really think about it, maybe it’s not that bad; an extra year for an extra degree that would have taken three years to do separately. You get to be exposed to a lot more subjects and environments that you wouldn’t be able to with just an engineering degree, which is super cool and enlightening. Its more or less more worth; kind of like a buy one get one free deal.
I won’t be unrealistic and say that it is a walk in the park- there are times when I have thought very very deeply about dropping the conjoint, but at the end of the day, it seems like my degree is treading the very fine line between love and hate.
my story
When I first started university, I was an Engineering and Commerce student who wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to be doing both. I decided that I would only really be able to gauge its worth if I tried a year in the conjoint- because hey, I could drop it if I wanted, but regretting my choice of pulling out early was arguably worse.
Now, I can’t speak for all conjoint degrees, but commerce is a solid pairing with engsci. Consulting is a super viable pathway for engsci, so pairing business knowledge with technical engineering knowledge is very useful in industry (plus it make a great interview question when they ask you about time management!). I think you learn more about practical business knowledge while doing commerce, whether it is theory about investing, markets or just people management.
Don’t get me wrong, you can very well learn about these things on your own, but same can be said for coding right?
final advice
Hopefully this blog helped you decide to pick up, drop or keep going with a conjoint degree (or maybe I made you really relieved that you are only doing engineering :P). But regardless, there are definitely good and bad things that will come out of it so don’t stress too much; I’m sure whatever path you have decided for yourself will turn out great in the end!
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