"We're probably lucky to have the additional breadth," he said, "[PEG] allows you to delay committing to one discipline or another."

Devroye has none of the complaints cited by candidates for multiple professional degrees.

"We've got a pretty good advising system," he says. "[Each department] treats us as members of their own department."

In addition to the advising provided by GSAS faculty, KSG faculty also advises PEG students. They actually run a weekly seminar solely for PEG students, who present their research ideas to each other.

The Numbers

In general, the number of people who pursue multiple degrees is very small. Because the programs are often unofficial exact numbers are hard to attain.

Grossman approximated that 40 students are currently pursuing concurrent degree programs between HLS and KSG.

The joint JD/MBA program is about the same size, with 9 people graduating this year.

Rakoff of HLS says that enough students are interested each year to make these programs worthwhile, but only a small proportion of the student body actually enrolls in joint programs.

At the GSE, there is one student pursuing a concurrent degree with HLS and one with HBS.

More students pursue ad-hoc degrees of their design or pre-established within GSAS.

As more and more students and faculty across the University recognize the importance of the multi-disciplinary approach, numbers will probably increase. It's now just a matter of creating greater unity and consistency between the schools and perhaps designing more joint degree programs.