Jia Sharma (she/her)
I once had to rush from a Tort Law lecture about false imprisonment at Pipitea to a film screening of The Princess Bride at Kelburn, and then back to Pipitea for a Public Law tutorial. When I started university I never expected to experience this level of contrast and mental whiplash in my day to day life. I never realised how difficult I would find it to maintain the balance between the different sides of my education.
Three simple words, “Film, English, and Law” elicit such an extreme reaction when I tell people what I study. It actually might be the biggest motivating factor to keep going with these degrees, people are so easily impressed. They always say things like “Wow, that’s a lot,” or ask “How do you do it?”
I do it just like everybody else. The truth is that I’m not special, and it’s not nearly as impressive as my family likes to brag about. There are so many students who study subjects stretching across different degrees at VUW, subjects that you would never think to pair together. This group of students are lucky, or unlucky, enough to also be split across multiple campuses. Each campus has a different student culture, and you may find yourself fitting in better at one, rather than the other.
Take Lola, a third year Law, Theatre, and Te Reo student. Due to the size and broad nature of the arts degree, she doesn’t find a lot of connection between the students of the degree and the culture at kelburn. She also finds the law community a lot more friendly, crediting the frequent events that occur and its more concentrated population. Lola loves how all her subjects are extremely different and has found ways to overlap them. She described using a MAOR112 freewriting assignment to memorise the limbs of privacy law. Lola said, “I feel like theatre is a much more physical subject which is a nice break, turn off the brain, use the body”.
I haven’t had the same experience at Pipitea as Lola has. In contrast, I find more of a connection with my fellow arts students. I’ve found that while I can be a lot more productive at Pip, my social life is lacking. Unlike in my arts classes, I don’t have a group of friends I can chat to in between our law classes, or book out a OGB study room with. This doesn’t automatically mean I like Kelburn more. Each campus serves a different purpose: Pipitea for focus, Kelburn for connection.
The different campuses are a physical representation of this. There is a forced distinction that makes it difficult to ignore the differences in your surroundings, and by extension, your mindset when moving between them. The buildings themselves remind me of this. Kelburn campus is full of open plan spaces designed for socialisation. The Hub is one of the loudest places I’ve ever been and is always full of life and hustle. The Old Government Building, where I usually find myself when at Pip, is filled with history. I remember the first time I walked into the Old Government Building, with its red carpet and lavish wooden staircase. Within an arm's reach of the Beehive and the courts, it’s perfect. It’s these visual factors that reinforce the internal switch I experience. This disparity serves as a constant reminder of the contrasting roles I play in my own education and daily life.
Just like many bilingual speakers who code-switch, I don’t consciously change how I act—it just happens. It’s an automatic adjustment based on my surroundings. It can also feel like a divide. Just as bilingual speakers sometimes feel caught between two linguistic identities, I sometimes feel split between two academic ones.
David, who is studying a Bachelor of Science in Geology and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and English Literature, luckily gets to “avoid Pipitea like the plague”. However, he still experiences a separation in the two sides of his education. He described the reaction to his degree as a mix of shock and pure, unadulterated fear, “it’s always a ‘woah’”. David finds the biggest benefit in studying drastically different degrees is when you get tired of one, you can switch off and engage with the other.
It’s similar to the way the different sides of your brain have different functions, and you can be more dominant on one side. My LLB is my left, and my BA is my right, and I switch between them. With the arts I can fulfil the creative side of myself, and with law I can fulfil my more logical, type A tendencies. Instead of necessarily switching sides of my brain, I more feel like I switch between sides of myself, one that's analytical and one that’s intuitive. These shifts not only affect how I process information but also how I interact with the environment and the people around me. I’m constantly adjusting my mindset to align with whatever I’m focusing on at the time.
The skills and mindset needed to break down a case are completely different to those needed to analyse a film or novel. The shift between these disciplines isn’t just intellectual but psychological—one moment, I’m discussing judicial review and the next I’m working on a shot list for a film project. I feel as if I need constant mental recalibration. I have to switch from critical problem-solving to creative interpretation—sometimes in the span of a single afternoon.
Personally, I can’t choose one degree or one campus over the other. I often feel as if I am two separate people studying two separate degrees. The divide between campuses is not just a 20 minute walk. It’s a completely different environment and student culture, and I adapt myself to fit into that. I find myself separating these sides of my education entirely. Unconsciously, I either say I study Law or Film and English, depending on who’s asking.
While I may have made this sound like a hindrance, I’ve started to think of this discrepancy as useful. I’m able to engage fully in both disciplines without feeling like I have to choose between them. I like being able to organise my mind, and flow freely between different mental compartments.
I’m sure this hasn’t been everyone’s experience with studying a conjoint degree. For some, the divide I feel between my degrees might not exist at all. Instead of switching between two academic personas, they might experience a more fluid overlap, where different disciplines enhance and inform one another rather than feeling like separate worlds. But that hasn’t been my reality—at least, not yet. The shift is more than just mental; it’s behavioral, social, and even physical. I dress differently, I interact differently, and I even process information differently depending on where I am. That being said, I know that this is still an evolving process. Maybe, with time, I’ll find ways to bridge the gap, to let these seemingly separate degrees bleed into one another. While I may not be fully at home in my degree as of now, I have at least three more years to get used to it.
