Having two degrees can give you a head start, writes Carolyn Boyd.

They add more time to your degree and bump up the cost but double degrees remain a popular choice.

Whether it be a standard offering or something exotic, many students are attracted to the idea of picking up skills across two fields.

At the University of Sydney, international relations is in demand as an add-on degree.

The associate dean (teaching and learning) in the faculty of arts and social sciences, Paul Allatson, says more than 20 degrees at the university can be combined with international studies.

"The only [degrees] that we don't offer it with are for those undergraduate courses such as architecture, which are already six years long, because it would add another three years to the students' time and no student wants to be at university for nine years," Allatson says.

The international relations degree includes a compulsory year overseas, which Allatson says is attractive to students who want to immerse themselves in another culture and language, either for their own interest or with an eye to a global career.

At the University of Wollongong, double degrees usually take between 4½ and five years to complete, says the assistant national marketing manager for the university, Janet Holen.

That's longer than a single degree but significantly shorter than studying two degrees consecutively, which would require more subjects to be taken.

For students studying a double degree, the workload in any one semester is no higher than for a single degree.

The cost is more than a single degree but less than two degrees studied separately, as fees are charged per subject.

The director of recruitment firm Hays, Grahame Doyle, says having a double degree won't necessarily win jobs but does show "a high level of commitment and a high level of work ethic".

"It indicates to me that the person is clearly intelligent and therefore is going to have a real capacity to continue to learn and develop outside of the educational world into business and so that person may well bring more potential to the organisation than someone with a single degree," he says.

Holen says the downside of doing a double degree can be that students will find there is less flexibility in subject choices, as they have to cover central components of each degree instead of having access to electives.

The art of pursuing a career in science

Rachelle Balez had a fascination for science and a passion for art. So when she got to university, she decided to study both.

The 24-year-old graduated with a bachelor of creative arts majoring in visual arts and has completed the requirements for a bachelor of science, majoring in biological sciences.

After five years of study she's taking a year off before returning to the University of Wollongong to complete honours in science, which she hopes will lead to a career as a research scientist.

Balez grew up surrounded by creativity. "I don't know how to not be creative, you give me a bit of Blu-Tack, or anything, and I'll start manipulating it or doodling or just creating art," she says. "But at the same time, I've just always had a real interest in the world around me and exploring and discovering."

Balez found one degree fed her interest in the other. "If I was doing an ecology subject I'd all of a sudden be drawing really big charcoals of banksias and if I was doing a genetics subject, I'd be crocheting cells and DNA in organic forms," she says.

"In saying that, there were some times during exam periods where you did feel like your brain was splitting because you'd go from drawing all night, pulling off a major work, to then the next day having to turn around and study for a genetics exam or something. There were times where it was tricky but it was good; you could feel your brain getting exercised."