The Degrees You Didn't Know You Could Combine

Stressing about picking the "wrong" degree? A double degree lets you keep your options open and chase more than one thing you're into.

This article is in partnership with Monash Business School.

Choosing a degree at 17 or 18 is a big ask. How are you meant to map out a whole career plan before you've even nailed down your coffee order?

The spiral of questions like, “What if I start a degree and it's not for me,” and “What if I'm into more than one thing?” is something Monash alum Ching Lee knew all too well at the end of high school.

"Like many students, I felt pressure to make a decision that would shape the rest of my career, which can be quite daunting when you're only 17 or 18 years old," Ching said.

But the good news is, you might not have to choose at all.

Rather than picking a single lane, she took on a double degree in Commerce and Psychology. Two very different Bachelor’s on paper, but the two had way more in common than expected.

"Business decisions are ultimately made by people, so understanding both the numbers and the human side of decision-making seemed like a valuable combination," she explained.

Where business meets the brain.

The deeper Ching got, the more she clocked the two fields crossing paths.

"In finance, we often assume people act rationally, but psychology shows that emotions, biases and cognitive shortcuts can significantly influence decision-making," she said.

These days she works as a Financial Accountant in the Outsourced Finance team at Pitcher Partners and has noticed that psychology pulls more weight than most would guess.

"In many ways, finance helps me understand the business, while psychology helps me understand the people running it," she said.

So, what could you combine?

Ching's Commerce and Psychology pairing is just one of many. If you've got a business brain but a second interest you can't shake, Monash Business School probably has a double degree that already covers it. Here are some of their options:

• Business + Law: corporate law, compliance, contract negotiation, or in-house legal at a startup.
• Business + IT: product management, tech consulting, founding your own thing, or those UX-meets-strategy hybrid roles.
• Business + Design: brand strategy, creative direction, marketing leadership, and becoming the increasingly sought-after "business-literate creative".
• Business + Global Studies / Languages: international trade, diplomacy-adjacent work, or jobs with multinationals and NGOs overseas.
• Business + Science / Health: health administration, pharma marketing, or medical device commercialisation.

You can also combine courses within the faculty, for example a Bachelor of Business, paired with a Bachelor of Digital Business. Or a Bachelor of Commerce with a Bachelor of Actuarial Science. You can find a full list here!

You don't have to choose between your passions.

"Many students feel they need to choose one path and give up the other, but a double degree can allow you to develop expertise in multiple areas and discover connections between disciplines that you may not have considered before," she said.

So, if you're lying awake worrying about making the wrong call, maybe that's the real takeaway: sometimes it's not about choosing between two passions. It's about finding a way to back both.

Ready to find your combo? Check out double degrees at Monash Open Day, August 1 and 2.