All departments have slightly different staffing and support structures, so who does what might be a little different across your departments. You will have had some induction sessions during your first semester which will have aimed to give you an overview of the key people on your programme, so you might find it helpful to revisit that information. Otherwise module sites in the VLE or each department’s website will be useful sources of information.

Staff working in departments which support combined programmes are very used to answering questions about how things work. Don’t be concerned about asking if something isn’t clear to you or you’re not sure which department or person is responsible for your query; you’ll find staff in both departments to be very friendly and helpful. Remember that this is one of the advantages of working across departments: you’ll have two (or maybe even more) groups of people to support and look out for you as you progress through your degree, so make the most of their expertise and guidance.

We mentioned above that studying across departments means that you benefit from all of the support and expertise they have to offer. This is true of many other aspects of university life too; you’ll be able to socialise and work with a wider range of other students, learn from experts across numerous disciplines and build your knowledge of a breadth of theories, research and practice. That might feel overwhelming to start with, but remember that nobody expects you to get to grips with everything straight away. Give yourself time to learn how things work in your departments and immerse yourself in your unique position across disciplines.

You’ll be using the VLE a lot across your departments; it’s an invaluable source of information for your modules and other department-specific information. You’ll find that some VLE sites look fairly similar within and across departments, but each department might have different layouts and practices across VLE sites. It’s therefore a good idea to take a look around your module sites for that semester, especially when you first switch to a module in a different department. Make sure you know where to find the module learning outcomes (usually included in the module outline or the welcome lecture) so that you have a good idea of what you’ll be expected to do. Look out for any information about the style of teaching used in that department and whether there’s anything specific you need to do early on in the module. If you have any doubts you can reach out to the module leader to clarify where you should start. Explore our advice on using the VLE if you need a refresher.

Your modules will usually provide a reading list, which will use the system from the library. Reading lists look a little different depending on the module and department, but generally they give you a helpful starting point to understand the ‘voice’ in each module or discipline. Take some time in each module to consider how the reading list is structured and what you’re expected to read ahead of time. Look out for books or articles marked as essential, as those will be the highest priority. In addition to the reading list you might also be expected to find, read and analyse other research papers, so you might need to brush up your searching skills.

Depending on the mix of departments in your combined programme, it’s possible that you might be required to use more than one referencing style in your assignments. There are numerous different styles in use across the University, so you’ll find it helpful to check early on which style or styles you’ll need to know. This will likely be explained in your programme handbook or your assessment guidelines. Usually each department will choose a single referencing style and expect you to use that style in all assignments for that department. You might consider using reference management software to store and write your references; you can change the referencing style very quickly and easily with such tools, although you’ll still need a good working knowledge of your departments’ styles to know that you’re writing references accurately.

One of the advantages of experiencing multiple departments is the unique blend of learning techniques and study skills which you’ll develop. You’ll be able to switch between the critical analysis skills required for one discipline to the real world applications favoured in another, for example. Take time during your degree to reflect on the skills you have learned which are a direct result of having taken a combined degree. You’ll be able to maximise this learning in other modules as well as to demonstrate your employability skills and lifelong learning capabilities. You’ll find for job applications that demonstrating an ability to move between different environments and policies with ease is invaluable; you’ll be able to show that you’re an agile and conscientious learner and an asset to the organisation.