How do I structure my personal statement (and what do I need to include) when applying for Joint Honours degree (50/50)?

More and more universities are turning to dual-subject programmes to attract students to their institutions. But is goes further than that, universities are realising that most of today's world issues need to be approached with interdisciplinary ideas and solutions. This basically means that problems to do with the economy aren't just solved by economists but rely on the knowledge of historians (to look back at what might have not worked so well), linguists (to translate processes across the globe), biologists (to explain where we could be making long-term savings with sustainability initiatives. Long story short, if you're deciding to apply for a Joint-Honours or any programme which mixes academic disciplines, you're in good company! The hard bits about approaching a personal statement about two subjects can include: -How to make the two subjects 'gel', or the personal statement flow naturally -Not knowing what percentage of the document should be dedicated to one or the other -Not fully understanding how your day-to-day at university will be structured with learning two subjects Whilst there is a lot of middle ground between subjects many can be taught and learnt completely separately. For example, someone who wishes to study French and History can spend around 1/3 of their personal statement on their motivation to study French (we can speak about these later!) and 1/3 on History. You don't have to mention the French Revolution as a historical french event, but you may want to if one of the reasons for studying the two together is because you just love the French Revolution! The most important thing is getting across WHY a Joint Honours is for you. As long as you give a relatively even amount of space for the two disciplines, then you can't go far wrong. A final difficultly could be trying to imagine what it's like as a student studying Joint Honours at University. Joint Honours means 50/50 time spent on each discipline, so for every 4 hours of history classes you have, you are likely to have 4 hours of french classes. This has huge pros as you will have the chance to meet twice as many people from across your university, you'll have peers in humanities and in arts. Whilst your lessons might be separate, you will likely have the opportunity to bring skills from one subject into another. For example, history students look a lot at primary sources and analyse them for new information and to strengthen arguments. Many language classes ask students to debate in their foreign language and your analytical skills from history will help you prepare original material for these debates. All these things can be mentioned in the personal statement, be imaginative, creative and be personal.