B. Science/B. Advanced Studies or B. Commerce/B. Advanced Studies? (1 Viewer)

[stopcrying]

In 2018, Usyd is introducing a 1 year degree 'add-on' in which you can Major in something outside of your faculty called 'B.Advanced Studies' (with no extra atar cost).

Since it can be added to Commerce,Science, Arts, + few other degrees; my question then arose: what is the exact difference between B. Commerce/B. Advanced Studies and B. Science/B. Advanced Studies given that you could major in Finance/Financial Mathematics & Statistics in either. (special thanks to sida1049 for helping me alot in understanding this)

http://imgur.com/a/jRsDn

By the above image, I've figured out a structure for my first theoretical year of B. Science/B. Advanced Studies as dictated by the course outline on USYD website.
I made this assuming that going into second year, i can designate my 'major electives' into either computer science or Financial Mathematics & Statistics since the first year compulsory math electives already fulfill the FM&S pre-requisites.

Reasons for doing B. Science/B. Advanced Studies over B. Commerce/B. Advanced Studies:

• Ill still be majoring in finance no matter the degree
• B science allows me to have the flexibility to determine whether I want to major in Computer Science OR Financial Mathematics & Statistics going into second year (Although most likely the latter, i am going to try my hardest in all my courses. who knows, i may find an affinity for Computer Science)
• Even if i dont end up doing computer science as a major i'm likely to pick up atleast a few useful skills from the first year units
• Allows me to transfer into the advanced stream in second year if i wish to do so and have gotten good marks in the MATH units (although i might be able to do this in commerce im not sure since alot of commerces compulsory units must be done OVER MATH units)
  [Side Note: since i do not do MX2, i cannot do the Advanced courses for MATH and i am fine with seeing how i go in the normal courses in first year.]

Reason for B. Commerce/B. Advanced Studies instead of B. Science/B. Advanced Studies

• It's a lower atar requirement??? May be looked down upon..?? by employers and other students? (the students part is a little bit of anxiety but i would be able to get over it probably lol)
• I haven't researched too much on the B Commerce alternative so i may be missing some benefits
• B Commerce allows me to do two majors within the business faculty if i change my mind (although I'm fairly set on the (Finance/Financial Mathematics & Statistics) Double)

With this i am seriously considering doing 80 ATAR B. Science/B. Advanced Studies over 95 ATAR B. Commerce/B. Advanced Studies

I'm not exactly asking anything i guess but i simply ask what are people's thoughts on this? Also, am i missing any possible benefits from B commerce that could sway to me to go into that direction?

I will also be getting EAS and applying for E12... so should i apply for E12 B. Science or B. Commerce...?

Thanks peeps!

 

[sida1049]

Hey man!

That study plan looks good. I'm fairly sure that the plan they've provided for B. Science/B. Advanced Studies is just a sample, so you don't necessarily have to stick by it. Just keep in mind that if you do choose to take 3 computer science units, your 4th non-mathematics junior science unit can't come from computer science (I recommend HPSC1000 Bioethics because it's fun and has a light workload lol). And in general, the only real restriction of what you can take in a semester is what you plan on taking later (e.g. if you want to take a certain unit next year, you better have completed it's prerequisites by the end of this year), so honestly you can do your compulsory business units in the last year of your degree, if that suits you better. Also, my personal opinion is that if you're studying computer science for the skills, INFO1103 Introduction to Programming and INFO1105 Data Science are the most relevant ones. I haven't done INFO1003, and it's non-essential for computer science majors (unlike the former two units), so make sure you do some research into that unit before deciding on it. (And personally, I would recommend you to consider COSC1003 Computational Science over INFO1003, just because it's more fun/interesting, has less work-load, and is useful. It's also a semester 2 unit, which balances out against your other semester 1 science units [though this really depends on you].)

One aspect that USYD advertises in their B. Commerce degree is their Industry Placement Program. It counts as an elective, and requires at least credit average to apply (which should be relatively easy to maintain). I don't know much about this, and Science doesn't have an equivalent program (though interestingly enough, Arts do), so you'll have to research this further.

I'm not sure how E12 works, but another alternative to your current options is Bachelor of Commerce (Liberal Studies). It's harder to get into, but maybe E12 can help with this. It's a 4-year degree that allows you a maximum of 3 majors from Commerce, Science and/or Arts. The compulsory business units are reduced from 5 units to just 2. And unlike a B. Science degree, you're not forced to do 24 non-maths credit points. Although you have a couple of other restrictions in this degree, such as at least 12 science credit points (this is laughably easy for you to fulfill considering your major) and at least 24 arts credit points (which you can just spend on economics/econometrics, or other units for your own interest). And since this is technically a B. Commerce degree, you get access to their industry placement program. And you'd still have plenty of units to try computer science (or even major in it, though you'd have to plan that carefully).

So while B. Commerce (Liberal Studies) looks like a very good degree for your interests, it's the hardest to get into. One possible course of action is to apply E12 for B. Commerce (Liberal Studies), and use B. Science/B. Advanced Studies as a safety net. So if you don't get into B. Commerce (Liberal Studies), then you can go into B. Science/B. Advanced Studies. Both are good degrees, offering you slightly different sets of opportunities. Even if you don't get into Liberal Studies, going into B. Science/B. Advanced Studies isn't a loss, because it'll likely allow you to explore computer science, maths and/or statistics more.

And don't worry about the ATAR stigma. It only exist in the minds of HSC students. A person graduating with B. Science with a wam of 80 is surely more impressive than a B. Comm graduate with a wam of 65.

Best of luck!

 

[pHyRe]

Just transfer into Comm Lib Studies if you're keen. I remember putting it as my first preference but I'm so happy I didnt get it, much prefer Commerce/Science as it suits me a lot better. Got caught up with the whole ATAR = good degree bs

 

[sida1049]

Just transfer into Comm Lib Studies if you're keen.

Is that possible though? I can't seem to find any information on transferring into this degree online...

 

[pHyRe]

Is that possible though? I can't seem to find any information on transferring into this degree online...

what do you mean possible? its the same as transferring to any other degree

the wam cutoff is a lot easier to get to than the atar one though. not sure what it is but maybe 65-70 wam versus 98 atar, so if youre keen on the degree dont stress too much and try transfer after a year