Which subject to major in... (1 Viewer)

[lil dynamyt]

Hi,

Can anyone give a run down of the majors you can choose in a commerce degree. I just want to know which ones are the best for job prospectives, which ones involve more maths, which involve more public speaking and presentations and which ones are plain boring.

Cheers!

 

[tallkid34]

Hi,

Can anyone give a run down of the majors you can choose in a commerce degree. I just want to know which ones are the best for job prospectives, which ones involve more maths, which involve more public speaking and presentations and which ones are plain boring.

Cheers!

Look up the handbook mate.

I'll give you a quick run down anyway.

Accounting/Finance - This combination is what defines most commerce students at unsw. Accounting is something that has to be experienced in order to be understood. A taste of first year accounting courses will help you decide whether or not its you for. Finance is essentially learning a shit load of formulas and applying it to the question. It has a lot of maths. Accouting is probably the major that will help the most in terms of finding employment.

Management/International Business/HRM/Marketing - These majors are english-based, and essentially require you to read some textbooks, lecture notes, rote learn what's in them and regurgitate it in either a presentation/test/essay format. There is also a lot of group work involved. These majors are not going to help you get employed but they can be interesting and if done with another more substantial major, can be a nice change from the quantitative stuff that should be done in any commerce degree.

Economics/Econometrics/Financial Economics - If you're not a huge accounting/finance fan, you're probably doing a bit of economics. The level of maths you do for economics varies on your specific major. A normal economics major will require you to do some econometrics which is a brand of maths that requires more interpretation from data sets than simply plugging in a few figures in to a formula and getting a result. Econometrics is just specialising in this series of maths and is more maths-intensive as you'll be doing more maths-related courses. Financial economics is an unusual major in which it specialises in econometric modelling which is getting a series of figures from a financial source (think prices of a stock/share over time), sticking it into a program, making a model and then interpreting it.

There are other majors out there (like actuarial, information systems, etc) but I'll let others explain them.

 

[wrong_turn]

I still think they should look up the handbook.

UNSW Handbook

don't be so fucking lazy

 

[wrong_turn]

i just saw that they are from class of 2007.

that just becomes monumentally worse...

 

[lil dynamyt]

Look up the handbook mate.

I'll give you a quick run down anyway.

Accounting/Finance - This combination is what defines most commerce students at unsw. Accounting is something that has to be experienced in order to be understood. A taste of first year accounting courses will help you decide whether or not its you for. Finance is essentially learning a shit load of formulas and applying it to the question. It has a lot of maths. Accouting is probably the major that will help the most in terms of finding employment.

Management/International Business/HRM/Marketing - These majors are english-based, and essentially require you to read some textbooks, lecture notes, rote learn what's in them and regurgitate it in either a presentation/test/essay format. There is also a lot of group work involved. These majors are not going to help you get employed but they can be interesting and if done with another more substantial major, can be a nice change from the quantitative stuff that should be done in any commerce degree.

Economics/Econometrics/Financial Economics - If you're not a huge accounting/finance fan, you're probably doing a bit of economics. The level of maths you do for economics varies on your specific major. A normal economics major will require you to do some econometrics which is a brand of maths that requires more interpretation from data sets than simply plugging in a few figures in to a formula and getting a result. Econometrics is just specialising in this series of maths and is more maths-intensive as you'll be doing more maths-related courses. Financial economics is an unusual major in which it specialises in econometric modelling which is getting a series of figures from a financial source (think prices of a stock/share over time), sticking it into a program, making a model and then interpreting it.

There are other majors out there (like actuarial, information systems, etc) but I'll let others explain them.

thanks for that.

 

[lil dynamyt]

@ wrong turn

I have looked at the handbook, but there is only so much information that the handbook can tell us....i just wanted to know first hand information from students who have done the commerce degree or are currently completeing it what the subjects were like as they could tell me which ones they thought were interesting, what the assessments were like etc...all of which is NOT SHOWN in the handbook.

 

[wrong_turn]

i'll finish off the reply after i finish exams. i'll edit this post later. but it does tell you what to expect from the major. it has words such as "manage" "quantify" etc. and then in the courses for that particular major, it tells you the topics that are completed with in those courses.

and if that is not enough, try looking up the course outlines from the school websites (its not that hard if you really wanted to know).

anything we tell you is subjected to our opinion of bias which could deter you from the major for the wrong reasons. e.g. actuarial was fucking boring. don't do it. accounting is a waste of time. OR even better, finance will definitely get you a job! (well not anymore)

understand?

edit: especially when you have douchebags like studentleader bagging out every non-quantitative major or useless major. or any double degree because it is not honours-worthy.

 

[tommykins]

i'll finish off the reply after i finish exams. i'll edit this post later. but it does tell you what to expect from the major. it has words such as "manage" "quantify" etc. and then in the courses for that particular major, it tells you the topics that are completed with in those courses.

and if that is not enough, try looking up the course outlines from the school websites (its not that hard if you really wanted to know).

anything we tell you is subjected to our opinion of bias which could deter you from the major for the wrong reasons. e.g. actuarial was fucking boring. don't do it. accounting is a waste of time. OR even better, finance will definitely get you a job! (well not anymore)

understand?

edit: especially when you have douchebags like studentleader bagging out every non-quantitative major or useless major. or any double degree because it is not honours-worthy.

hahah studentleaders' quite a know-it-all fuckwit isn't he

 

[lil dynamyt]

ok ok...well thanks for the help anyway. Btw who is this studentleader lol??

 

[tommykins]

some guy in first yr uni all the way in WA who acts like he knows everything about uni .

 

[tallkid34]

some guy in first yr uni all the way in WA who acts like he knows everything about uni .

He's a fuckwit. Neutral (neg) repped me for expressing my respect for com/eng degrees.

I don't really understand why he bothers to post here in the first place? Never got a response from him for that question.

Is it because he's trolling? Probably not as his display pic is a blurry pic of himself in a suit with a horrible red tie...

Is it because he's intellectually superior? I doubt it. I saw his marks on his profile and he doesn't rank in the usual 99+ hierarchy on BOS. I don't either but then again, I don't constantly assert the fact that my degree is better because I said so.

Is it because he's lonely? You know, out in WA. Beats me what people in Perth do for entertainment? If it's like Adelaide, the whole place will shut down at 10pm.

Is it because he feels inferior in some way? If so, I don't intend on changing his way of thought.

Or is it because he's just a supercilious cunt? (Smiley face thinks yes)

 

[tommykins]

hahaha only new thing i learnt in that post was the word 'supercilious'

 

[wrong_turn]

hey tallkid, i still can't rep that post of yours =(

that was worthy of rep!

 

[Justina]

You guys think I'll get anywhere with double majors in Marketing/International Business/Management/business law?

 

[tallkid34]

You guys think I'll get anywhere with double majors in Marketing/International Business/Management/business law?

The problem with these majors is that you won't really be gaining any sort of quantative skills and instead, you'll just be learning things that essentially are considered common sense.

Best option for you is to do acct/fins/econ major with one of the those mentioned above.

Still at the end of the day, whatever you study is completely your choice. As for getting anywhere, that's really dependent on no one and nothing else except yourself.

I also forgot to mention that university in general is complete bullshit and you'll learn what you need to know in your workplace instead.