Business & Economics Subject Review Thread (2 Viewers)

[BLIT2014]

Unit Code: BUSL320
Year and Semester Taken: 2017 S2
Lecturer: Catriona
Workload: High
Difficulty: Moderate

Assessment Breakdown:
5% Weekly Homework
You get half a mark for a decent/good submission attempt, and the best 10/12 submissions are counted.
5% In-Class Presentation
Would recommend that you go in the first week if possible as they are more lenient in the marking.
10% Online Quiz
I found working with the time limits challenging.
20% Take-home Assignment
Only given three days to complete it when it gets released so make sure you plan to have that weekend off!

60% Exam
Can bring in the tax act legisilation book into the final, as well as tab it.
Do pastpapers + go to consultation with worked answers to get your solution. Also the textbook that has worked examples is good to use to put into your sheet.

Comments:
A challenging unit, however if you do the readings, and practice the questions provided plus look at the work examples then you will be able to get through it. Studying and effort pays dividends in this subject.

 

[BLIT2014]

BBA360
Year and Semester Taken: 2018 S1
Lecturer: Usual Lecturer
Difficulty: Moderate
Workload: Super Heavy


Assessment Tasks:

Reflection 1: 10% (In-class)

Have a read through the lecture notes for all weeks (1-6) to try tp prepare. Apparently similarish questions are asked each semester. Average was very low for the first task.

Reflection 2: 20% (In-class)

Remember the last reflection question that was asked it was similar to the first one. Have a good knowledge of reports, lectures, and experience that you have gained from your “consulting” project.

Individual Presentation: 10%

Stick to the time limit. Do not show any nerves. DO NOT use notes or informal language, act like you are presenting to a serious board or whatever.

Group Report : 30%

Get started early. The expectation is that you can present the report to a major CEO of an asx company. Have multiple people edit it. Do not under estimate this task. Print it in colour and have it bound + have diagrams/graphs.

Group Report Presentation : 20% (Marked individually)

Stick to the time limit. Do not show any nerves. DO NOT use notes or informal language, act like you are presenting to a serious board or whatever. Wear business attire.

Individual Participation in Group Project (10% Peer Assessed)

Be nice to your peers?

Comments:
Lectures are compulsory to attend and you will have your attendance marked by writing down your name. No excuses for not attending lectures. Lectures only run from weeks 1-6, so we have that advantage. Speak to the lecturer about what your “report” attempts to answer/solve for the business that you are acting as consulting.

This is a significant amount of work, and requires you to have multiple interviews/visit the respective locations of the business. I would recommend that you have a business that is willing to have you act as “consultants” organised before the first lecture. In the first lecture you will be instructed to join/find a group that is within your tutorial. Try and do this subject with friends, or people you have worked well with previous semesters because otherwise you might as well drop the subject before you begin. Do not do this unit unless it is compulsory.

 

[Zoinked]

Unit Code: ACCG224
Year and Semester Taken: 2018 S2
Lecturer:
Workload: High
Difficulty: Hard

Stay on top of lectures, tute homework takes about 2-3 hours a week and its still likely you will make mistakes in it. It gets pretty hard early on, but it gets a bit easier after the class test.

 

[Anthel]

Unit Code: ACCG200
Year and Semester Taken: 2018 S2
Lecturer: Dr Amy Tung (really good)
Workload: Medium
Difficulty: Easy/Moderate

The Unit convenor, Dr Amy Tung was probably amongst the best lecturers for accounting I've had. Her explanations of certain concepts made the content so much easier to understand. She also provides very good exam preparation material.

Assessment task 1: Case study presentation (10%)
This is a group presentation task which occurs in the week 9 tutorial. You will be assigned into group in week 3 so make sure you make sure you get to know the good people quick and dont skip this class or else you will be placed with undesirables (lazy group members). You will be given a case study with questions to answer, they are mostly ethical questions with a bit of accounting concepts that you will learn in this unit, make sure you answer them correctly and go indepth with the ethical viewpoints. You will need to make a powerpoint slides to accompany your presenation. Tutors seem to mark heavily on the actual presentation in terms of eye contact, engagment with the audience, movement, etc rather than the actual content itself.

Assessment task 2: Class tests (14%)
There will be two in class test which are 7% each. One in week 6 and one in week 11, they are all multiple choice. The best way I believe to maximise marks is to practice the tutorial questions and lecture examples and you will ace them.

Assessment task 3: Assignments (16%)
Weekly assignments (6%)
The tutor will randomly collect 4 tutorial weekly assignments. So make sure you attend all your tutorials and complete the weekly assignments, this will require the textbook. They aren't difficult if you attend the lectures.

Excel assignment (10%)
The excel assignment is faily straightforward. Watching the excel videos provided will help in completing it, dont leave it to the last minute like I did or it will be quite a bother to get that done whilst preparing for the presentation.

Assessment task 4: Final examination (60%)
Final exam is 60% so its quite big, so make sure you prepare well. The convenor provided a past paper from 2017 and a sample paper with solutions, PLUS she provided in the week 13 lecture a proper overview of each weeks topic and their relation to the final exam. So there is no excuse to have a lack of knowledge in the final exam. The final exam itself is the exam same as the past paper but with different values so practice, practice, practice and you will ace it for sure.

Summary
Always ask questions if you're lost during tutorials and the content can sometimes be a bit confusing such as doing the T accounts so dont be afraid to ask. I didnt attend the PAL for this unit as I am already super familiar with accounting concepts but I've heard it is really useful for this unit, so if you're not strong with accounting attend the PAL sessions!
Dr Amy is a very good lecturer, but I didnt attend her tutorial (I attended another tutorial group). But I've heard really good things about her so if you can I highly recommend you try assign yourself to her tutorials.
Try to get along with your peers as that will be very useful for the group task. Other than that, good luck!

 

[mrstripedshades]

Unit Code: ACCG224
Year and Sem Taken 2018 S2
Workload: High
Difficulty: Hard-Moderate

There was errors in lecture quality and recordings which made completing some weeks of homework extremely hard. The homework is high in quantity right from the get go and isn't something you can smash the night before as it can be quite tedious and repetitive. It is however usual in building your understanding and knowledge of the unit, it is most likely very difficult to pass this unit without adequately completing homework.

Technically its a participation mark and not a HW mark, so the way Tutors assess you differs, some tutors just ask you if you've done it and have a quick look whilst mine skimmed through it and expected you to contribute to class discussion. My tutor was very good and explained content thoroughly, much better than actual answers or the lecturer.


overall its probably the hardest or most content heavy accounting unit I've done so far, I got a high credit and have gotten decent to high HD's in my other accounting subjects so far. Content is much harder before the mid sem in my opinion, after that quantity of HW and difficulty decreases.


Unit Code: ECON241
Year and Sem Taken: 2018 S2
Workload: Medium
Difficulty: Moderate

This unit is a weird one, in the sense that at most unis its much harder and has the potential to be extremely hard. However this unit and the way its assessed and taught just brushes the top of Econometrics, assessing you in the most monotone and easy ways possible (imo). It does however require you to keep up and be interested in statistics. The Lecture quality was mediocre, as lecture slides are not all useful and go way too indepth into what you actually need for the unit. The original lecturer (Chris Heaton) however was actually good, and a change to Daehoon half way through wasn't very constructive and worsened lecture quality significantly.

The hardest parts of this unit are actually the learning stages, as lectures are pretty much useless in regards to teaching you how to use Gretl (a stats program which is essential to this unit), this is done in weekly tutorial quizzes which you must pass 8 of to receive a full 10% for participation in this unit. There are 4 quizzes which must be done within 2 hours once you begin them, and you have a weeks space to do so. These quizzes are not very time consuming and can easily be attempted with others, the last 2 quizzes increase in difficulty, particularly the last one.

For me the last parts of the unit were extremely difficult, painstakingly at times, but however were not assessed in the final exam, even though they were eligible to do so. Keep in mind the final has changed for the last few semesters, my semester was the first time it was done without a cheat sheet and only in 1 hour and 30 minutes, It was pretty much an exact replica of the sample.

 

[BLIT2014]

ACCG355 Information Systems for Management
Year and Semester Taken: 2018 S2
Lecturer: Mansour
Tutor : Ed
Difficulty:Easy
Workload:
Extremely light: If you want to pass or get a credit
Light : Credit or distinction
Lightish/Medium: Distinction/High Distinction.

Assessment Tasks:

Assessed coursework 30%: (Group presentations)

For the most part, we were unable to choose groups. See if you can get a large group of your friends in the class in order to decrease the likelihood of getting dodgy group members. However, after the first couple of weeks, you may get put with more capable people so it is not entirely in balanced. You get 40 minutes or so to research, and put together a presentation (most groups used google slides as it is easier to collaborate with) and then present to the class. It is 3 minutes for presentations, and it is important not to go over by more than a few seconds (put a stopwatch timer on, so you can know when to stop) as you will be penalised. Ensure that only a max of three people present and you are strict/notify individuals when it is time to move on. It is a presentation, so avoid reading notes or straight of the presentation slides. If someone struggles with English/concepts do their slides for them (and write up what they were planning to say, and if possible help them write their presentation speech) as this should maximise your marks.

Warning certain tutorial activities topics may not have been covered in lectures of the previous/current week so don’t be surprised if this happens. Each assessment task is worth 3% each week.

Case Study/Report 20%: Individual

A nicely formatted business report, with appropriate headings and sub-headings that looks readable should be part of your focus. Put page numbers, and a content page to make it nice and presentable. If you do the content page in word, you can make it when you click certain parts of the content page it will go to the appropriate section. Important to look at the rubric. Ensure that you have the minimum number appropriate number of sources (and more) and try to find per reviewed journal articles. Acknowledge background sources (such as the case study) by writing background source/peer-reviewed source as this is part of the rubric (check) when I did it, and many individuals were let down by this.

Final Examination 50%:

Go to or listen to the lecture that contains information regarding the final exam. Take that into account when choosing which areas to focus on. Part of the exam is comprehension type questions (that you are meant to interweave course knowledge) into so unless you don’t turn up to tutorials and ignore the lectures or the week that tells you what is in the exam) then you are likely to pass. The content did not seem difficult but a small number of non-IT individuals within the class at time seemed to struggle with the concepts. If you aren’t sure exactly what the question is asking write out your assumptions, then bullshit away (I did this in the exam a few times, and it seemed to have worked so I’d recommend doing so if you placed in this situation).

Comments:

It switches between Mansour and Blount, as the lecturers/unit convenors. Both are meant to be decent lecturers, and ilecture option will probably be available. Staff are very helpful with respect to explaining anything you are struggling with. As a non-IT background student I used the textbook, which is available for free on the Macquarie library (download a chapter a day) in order to do well in certain areas of the course which I wasn’t acquainted with.

You will require ACCG250 as a prerequisite, and it is a similar subject in respect to what is expected from you i.e no IT coding, and more theoretical rather than practical. It is 300 level commerce, science and Information technology unit so if you are looking for one then this is a decent one (for people who find ACCG250 fairly easy that I have spoken to also did decently in this one). Note it is an accounting code but no accounting knowledge is required whatsoever!

 

[TripleJ55]

Unit Code: BUSL320
Difficulty: Challenging
Lecturer: Hope Ashiabor
Year and Semester Taken: 2018 S2
Workload: Heavy

Comments:
I received a Distinction for this subject, but personally this was one of the most challenging subjects I've done, right up there with ACCG308 consolidations. This subject isn't technically challenging like 308, but it is very content heavy. Expect to spend a lot of time reading the four assigned textbooks, I'd say double that of a regular subject. This is one of those subjects that must be respected, DO NOT fall behind on content and DO NOT try to cram during the last week because you will fail if you don't keep up. Make sure to do all the assigned readings, tutorial questions and attend consultation ASAP if needed. Hope is a great lecturer and definitely makes this subject more enjoyable. Make sure to hand in all tutorial homework as this is an easy 5 marks and the difference between a pass or fail. DO NOT copy your friend's homework because the tutors do read your homework answers and people were docked marks for copying. My biggest tip would be to keep up, do the reading, and do the homework. I would also say to study smart. Do not try to memorise the textbook word for word, pick out the key points, legislation and cases.

 

[TripleJ55]

Unit Code: ACCG340
Difficulty: Moderate to Challenging, some people just "get it" and some don't
Lecturer: Dominic Soh and various others, the lectures are recorded
Tutor: May Vargas (Excellent tutor, highly recommended, helped me achieve a Distinction)
Year and Semester Taken: 2018 S2
Workload: Moderate

Comments:
I had heard this subject was quite challenging from a few people prior to taking it. In class I even met two people who were retaking the subject. My personal experience is that some people will "get it" and find this subject a breeze while some will have difficulty grasping the content. Either way, do not worry. I personally found this subject challenging, but was able to get a distinction. My first tip is: ATTEND THE SEMINAR AND PAY ATTENTION. I know, I know, the seminar is 2-3 hours long and it's tempting to allow your focus to wander, especially if you have an early morning seminar like me. But please, try to pay attention in the seminar as I found the seminars crucial to helping me understand some of the more difficult parts of the course. If you listen to the lecture recordings, do the homework (prior to attending the seminar) and attend the seminar and pay attention, you should have no difficulty passing. I didn't really read the textbook unless it was to clarify a point I didn't understand. My tutor was May Vargas and she was excellent. She would explain the concepts in a way that would really help you make sense of the content. My main exam revision strategy was reviewing the lecture examples and seminar questions, and going through the case study questions. DO NOT try to rote learn this subject as this will almost guarantee you don't do well. The key is to understand the content and know how to apply theory to practical case studies.

 

[thor1990]

Unit Code: ECON232
Difficulty: Hard
Lecturer: Chris Heaton
Year and Semester Taken: 2018 S2
Workload: heavy

Comment:
Probably the hardest economics unit (just harder than econ309) inspite it being only a 200 level subject. Very hard to receive a HD in this. Tips would be to make sure you get 100% in the tutorial this is attainable so make sure you revise the previous weeks lecture before hand. With the final do the past papers but don't just rely on them. Only 70% will repeat. Don't worry about the proofs or complicated algebra in the lectures. You mainly need to know what an issue is e.g Autocorrelation , how to detect it, what are the consequences and how to fix it. The assignment is hard so start early and ask your tutor if your on the right path

 

[boredofstudiesuser1]

A bit late to the party, but:
Unit Code: ECON111 (now ECON1020)
Difficulty: Easy (but the marking criteria for the assignment can be a bit hard to gage)
Lecturer: Paul Crosby
Tutor: Matteo Malavasi
Year and Semester Taken: 2019 S2
Workload: Light - read FREE textbook chapter (and do the minimal practice Qs), watch lectures, tutorial Qs (tutor let us do them in class)
2 HR Lecture, 1 HR Tutorial
Assessment Breakdown:
10% Participation (easy marks)
10% Online Quizzes (probably the hardest part - although some of the Qs very similar to the textbook Qs)
30% Individual Assignment (easy if you don't start a couple of nights before) - the marking was a bit wishy-washy
50% Final Exam (similar to MCQs and practice Qs the lecturer gives before hand)