Commerce vs Management (1 Viewer)

Benjimange

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I am interested in doing a Bachelor of Commerce or Management.
Basically i want to do this course because i want to get a high GPA so as to gain entry into another course.
However, i am genuinely interested in commerce/finance/business, and see it as a good backup should i fail.
I NEED to do well and am obviously willing to work hard. However, in some courses working hard means credits, in others distinctions. I obviously want the latter.
So basically what i am asking is:
- How 'hard' are these courses to do well in? (i know its broad but please try). And which out of Commerce, Business and Management is considered 'easier'.
- What prior knowledge is required to do well? (what would i need to brush up on)

I know this probably sounds like i am doing the course for the wrong reasons, but any help would be appreciated.
 

akqjt

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What institution is this? Macquarie? Business/Commerce are usually degrees and you choose majors/minors when completing them. Management is (usually) a major.

Anyway, which ever course has the least math subjects would be the easiest.
 

Monsterman

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try choosing the one which you are most interested in.. then you may perform better in it.. rather than toiling over some random shit that you dont care about ..
 

Benjimange

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I was looking at the commerce degree at UOW to be honest.
I think you study all areas of commerce to begin with and then choose your major from there, which would suit me as i dont really know at this point.

I really want to know if a gpa of around 6 is reasonably achievable in these degrees? I like the look of this degree because it interests me, and because i have heard that good results arent overwhelmingly difficult. Please correct me if i am wrong.

Also, if i were looking to start in 2011, what books/courses could i take to give myself a headstart on the course?
 

RDX

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I was looking at the commerce degree at UOW to be honest.
I think you study all areas of commerce to begin with and then choose your major from there, which would suit me as i dont really know at this point.

I really want to know if a gpa of around 6 is reasonably achievable in these degrees? I like the look of this degree because it interests me, and because i have heard that good results arent overwhelmingly difficult. Please correct me if i am wrong.

Also, if i were looking to start in 2011, what books/courses could i take to give myself a headstart on the course?
Most Commerce degrees have core subjects which cover the main majors on offer. You'll probably know once you finish the core what you want to major in. Maybe just go to a Uni library and look up books on the core subjects. Some Uni's post their booklists online but I think you'd have to be a student to access that. Btw Management is pretty damn easy, not many people major in that by itself, usually they do a double major with something else and proclaim the management side to be a bludge.
 

rx34

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My accounting tutor once told me, he felt sorry for the kiddies who majored in marketing/management instead of accounting; he referred to management as a 'soft' subject and only real boys do accounting. lol
 

akqjt

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My accounting tutor once told me, he felt sorry for the kiddies who majored in marketing/management instead of accounting; he referred to management as a 'soft' subject and only real boys do accounting. lol
Like accounting is so hard?

Anyway, Accounting/Finance are the hardest commerce/business majors, the rest are pretty easy considering the low amount of contact hours + wrote learning aspect. Although since accounting/finance are more numbers orientated you don't run the risk (as much) of being screwed over by subjective marking. Personally, you should be able to get a =>Distinction average first year as the subjects are the easiest, it's more your motivation that will determine your success first year.
 

Monstar

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Never really understood 'management' majors.. Management is based alot on experience and probably tertiary education, they're not gonna let some undergrad freshie handle things.
 

Monstar

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Like accounting is so hard?

Anyway, Accounting/Finance are the hardest commerce/business majors, the rest are pretty easy considering the low amount of contact hours + wrote learning aspect. Although since accounting/finance are more numbers orientated you don't run the risk (as much) of being screwed over by subjective marking. Personally, you should be able to get a =>Distinction average first year as the subjects are the easiest, it's more your motivation that will determine your success first year.
accounting initially is heaps hard.. conceptually very challenging and different. I knew i was like wtfing alot but it seems to grow on you and become second nature. I think finance is probably harder, and even then all it takes is a few hours of grinding to understand with a great degree of confidence.
 

akqjt

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accounting initially is heaps hard.. conceptually very challenging and different. I knew i was like wtfing alot but it seems to grow on you and become second nature. I think finance is probably harder, and even then all it takes is a few hours of grinding to understand with a great degree of confidence.
I should admit that I was also wtf'ing at accounting 1A/1B but I think that was a function of the amount of time I spent studying (<1hr/week/subject) than it being overly difficult - now I just get cut I didn't D/HD them to be honest. Sorry if I come off as arrogant, my main point is that if you work hard enough you can at least >D any subject, and core subjects are usually easier than later subjects. The only thing to improve since I started uni is my work ethic and I've gone from Ps and Cs in the beginning to Ds and HDs in the latter (harder) part of my Commerce degree.

Finance has always been fairly straight forward to me - either learn a formula to plug in some numbers or maybe do a bit of problem solving/manipulation, or learn a concept. I haven't come across any overly difficult finance concepts or formulas throughout my major (I'm done) and I'm definitely not a bright person. I did two of the hardest finance electives at UNSW as well.
 
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Monsterman

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My accounting tutor once told me, he felt sorry for the kiddies who majored in marketing/management instead of accounting; he referred to management as a 'soft' subject and only real boys do accounting. lol
then i suppose men do actuary?
 

RDX

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My accounting tutor once told me, he felt sorry for the kiddies who majored in marketing/management instead of accounting; he referred to management as a 'soft' subject and only real boys do accounting. lol
lol yeah management and marketing are pretty damn easy, well if you're good at roting and writing essays that is.
 

tubtub

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i have to say, marketing and management are easy to pass but hard to get high marks in like say HD. you can make up shit in essays but you gotta truely know the stuff to do well. also the marketing/management industry at large tend to favour ppl with solid working experience rather than just a mangt/marketing degree.
 

RDX

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i have to say, marketing and management are easy to pass but hard to get high marks in like say HD. you can make up shit in essays but you gotta truely know the stuff to do well. also the marketing/management industry at large tend to favour ppl with solid working experience rather than just a mangt/marketing degree.
yeah essay subjects tend to be pretty hard to get HDs on (I'm doing a predominantly essay course and yeah some of the units have a low HD %, but I'm still on straight HDs after year I :p)
 

Benjimange

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What kind of assumed knowledge is there for a commerce degree? Its been a while since i have been at school, and i assume most undergrads would be coming straight from hsc courses in maths/commerce etc.
What would i need to brush up on?
Would i be severely disadvantaged (particularly mathematically)?
 

rx34

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I did Business and Economics Statistics which was mandatory for my commerce degree. I am horrible in maths and I thought it would be my worse subject. There is assumed mathematical knowledge in commerce, but nothing too fancy. It's not as mathsy as Engineering maths, i.e no calculus.

At the end of the semester, I did about 9 practice exams (the lecturers were really generous with past exam papers). I ended up getting 86% HD for that subject. I'm pretty happy considering only 3% of the entire course got HDs and maths is definitely not my forte.

FYI we covered topics like Chi Test, basic probability, simpson's paradox, trends and statistics, CPI trends and z scores and tables. But they teach you everything from scratch.

However in UNSW, they cover things like matrices and annuities. So it depends which uni you are going to.
 
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akqjt

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However in UNSW, they cover things like matrices and annuities. So it depends which uni you are going to.
The subject you're describing is QMA - Commerce people don't have to do it anymore, just Economics. Every one has to do a statistics subject like the one you did (referring to UNSW)
 
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Gmac_0

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My accounting tutor once told me, he felt sorry for the kiddies who majored in marketing/management instead of accounting; he referred to management as a 'soft' subject and only real boys do accounting. lol

I'm not planning to do much uni accounting cause I couldn't even stand the 1/2 at school. It was a joke, terribly monotononous, most of the teachers that taught it seemed to struggle to engage in it themselves. Admittedly it is a bit more difficult than management, at least at HS, but imo it was no more interesting than other commerce stuff. Accounting doesn't really have a lot of difficult maths in it anyway, who knows why the uni's make you have methods when you're doing something like Arts/Management or Arts/Marketing.
 

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