How to write a college essay about two academic interests

RReaders in Stanford's admissions office meet many strong applicants whose two serious interests seem to live in separate buildings, music and engineering, say, or classics and computer science. Most of these students assume the essay must pick one. Others give each half equal space and hope the reader connects them, which a reader moving quickly through a file rarely has time to do. Either way the file loses what made it unusual: a student who would bring two departments' worth of curiosity to campus reads as a specialist, or as two half-finished people. There is a better plan, and it begins by writing about both.