Why so many finance majors in Com/Law? (1 Viewer)

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Y do MOST comm/law students choose to major in finance?
Just wondering...

 

[BobB]

Re: comm/law Finance majors

Y do MOST comm/law students choose to major in finance?
Just wondering...

Its the same reason as why hs students pick an arts or commernce degree - they have no ide awhat they want to do and have a very unrealistic view of what the content involves and what job opportunities they will have afterwards

 

[Frigid]

Re: comm/law Finance majors

on that point, i would like to quote the late Justice Murphy:-

[W]henever you are faced with a decision, you always follow what the last person who was faced with the same decision did. It is a doctrine eminently suitable for a nation overwhelmingly populated by sheep.

 

[turtleface]

Because, though arduous a career in Finance is, you can earn a salary of $200,000+ first year out if you are good. (and can get a job)

(i.e. 80-120,000 base +50-100% bonus for merchant/investment banking and 60-80,000 for front desk operations + 25%-50% bonus)

Economics is not a viable option due to poor remuneration. neither is Management. Actuarial is poor rumuneration as well until you become a FIAA. That leaves Finance and Accounting as good money makers. Most people find Accounting too hard and too boring, and the starting pay too low, leaving Finance.

 

[Omnidragon]

Comm/Law students are usually the high achievers in high school. It is only natural that they'll seek to study finance because it opens up opportunities in high-paying grad jobs.

Put it this way... I bet most Comm/Law people would say 'why go get a 100 UAI to go study accounting to become an an auditor at Big 4?'

 

[Frigid]

I bet most Comm/Law people would say 'why go get a 100 UAI to go study accounting to become an an auditor at Big 4?'

coz they fucked up their med interviews :rofl:

 

[turtleface]

Comm/Law students are usually the high achievers in high school. It is only natural that they'll seek to study finance because it opens up opportunities in high-paying grad jobs.

Put it this way... I bet most Comm/Law people would say 'why go get a 100 UAI to go study accounting to become an an auditor at Big 4?'

Uh...because Big 4 Registered Auditors (i.e. staff and equity partners) get like $600,000 a year minimum maybe? with equity partners getting like $1million to $1.55 million packages last year. http://www.brw.com.au/fearticle.aspx?relId=14451 (need subscription)

uh...because Big 4 Auditor (like all auditors) have salaries protected by law (corporations act) (i.e. you have to pay auditors reasonably high salaries to attract the best)

uh...because there are more company directors from big 4 firms than from the biggest 4 firms of any other profession?

uh...because pretty much all Chief Financial Officers are ex-Big 4 auditors?

how can you bag big 4 auditors like that? people work their arses off trying to get into those places.

Speak for yourself man not everyone is a wannabe investment banking analyst/trader/broker like you. Think long term, a partner will make back in 1 week the extra an analyst makes in a year, over a graduate auditor's salary.

and even so, why the hell would anyone want to do BCom/LLB to become an analyst for? What use is law when you're constructing earnings models or staring at your eight computer screens?

nothing in commerce requires law knowledge more than accounting. tahts why auditors have to do 2 years of corporate law subjects.

 

[turtleface]

coz they fucked up their med interviews

so true lol


omnidragon if i knew who your were id find u at uni and slap some sense into you

 

[phrred]

coz theyre asians wanting to get into IBs

 

[turtleface]

But since you seem pretty fired up, I'll just say Allan Moss took home 18 million dollars last year; most grads in a big IB take 100+ after bonuses and there're partners at Big 4 who earn mid 100s. So I don't exactly agree that partners can make back what an analyst makes in a day. Don't forget that by the time you get to partner, that analyst is probably associate director.

uh...WTF? earth to omnidragon: no self respecting big 4 partner will allow themselves to earn mid 100s. Dude...surburban practice partners get more than mid 100s. So do senior managers. Bloody non manager Group Accountants earn more than that. I don't know where you pulled this figure out of. It's like saying some Investment banking directors earn mid 100s. I think you mean mid $1millions. If I was a Big 4 partner earning mid 100's I'll have about 50 mid tier firms offering a position at quadruple the salary, if not more.

Secondly, Allan Moss has a BA/LLB. And he is the CEO of Macquaire which isn't even a straight Investment Bank, so I don't see teh relevance to this discussion. In any case, its unfair to compare CEO salaries because Big 4 Firms don't produce executive remuneration figures so who knows how much they get.

The perfect VCE scorers I know. including myself, didn't consider applying for Big 4 auditing. As far as the previous sentence is concerned, I'm speaking for about 6 perfect scorers in my year.

please dont tell me its you matt...

 

[turtleface]

...what I meant to say was that people have been choosing goddamn finance over accounting...

Yes thats true unfortunately when I think about more often than not all the top students do choose Finance, whether cause they find Accounting boring and/or too hard. So I admit I'm probably shouldn't have said "Speak for yourself" in hindsight.

For some reason at our uni there is an decreasing amount of good innovative thinkers in Accounting, leaving the bogans and mediocre students only. The Big Four don't help by letting people with crappy marks into their firms (well rounded people skills don't help when you're incompetent). In fact, Accounting is totally getting stuffed in terms of quality candidates, and the firms recognise this, but haven't had much success in reversing the trend.

You probably have some legit points, its just that a Big Four shouldn't be as crap as it is playing out to be at the moment. Hopefully its prestige and ability to attract better graduates will increase in the future, or Financial Reporting and the entire Capital Market System will be in deep shit with the current boganish and incompetent lot of accounting students.

 

[Rorix]

Because accounting is too boring.

And that's the truth.

 

[turtleface]

of course accounting is boring. but what profession isn't?

you're deluding yourself if you think law or investment banking is exciting. heres a repost from another thread on what an investment banker does:


These are from vault.com, which is like THE site for careers info

A day in the life of an IB Analyst
This one is really funny, especially the 8:03am and 10:00pm entries
http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=240&article_id=231465 19&cat_id=2291

A week in the life of a IB Analyst
http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=240&article_id=160698 65&cat_id=2291

and one more from an Indian source (in english)
http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2005/dec/19ibank.htm
This one is a bit controversial though

 

[santaslayer]

wtf debating about salaries is pointless and full of nothing but shit.

articles relating to salaries are also shit

the truth is, u wont know what u earn until u get ur arse into the job market.

no one here is anywhere near becomming an IB or auditor

so wtf r u all ranting on about?


dont talk like u're already earning the 100K+


like....wtf?

 

[Omnidragon]

100k so little money for rich ppl like santaslayer anyway... why bother ^_^

 

[_dhj_]

Because accounting doesn't sound as prestigous. It's all about the prestige...

 

[turtleface]

Because accounting doesn't sound as prestigous. It's all about the prestige...

To us in the general public its really low key and boring, but I think its really well regarded in the business community. hence why its been stated many times before, theres more CEOs and Directors who are from Accounting backgrounds than any other.

maybe its also cause we live in Australia, I hear from a friend that Accountants are treated like gods in Switzerland, with all their swiss bank accounts and exotic business combinations.

 

[santaslayer]

Maths=Analysis

Law=Analysis

therefore:

Law students: can do any shit.

 

[turtleface]

But in MY belief, accounting requires far more mathematical application than finance which can be theory-based (if you select the right electives). Friend told me this

it depends on areas for accounting too. if you do really researched based accounting, you come across all sorts of statistical analysis and formulae, but for most areas i don't think its mathematically based... theres all sorts of computers now. In finance, you always have to construct some sort of model, or spend heaps of your time with excel or something. Finance actually needs hardcore econometrics to be able to do it, otherwise you get totally lost with the more advanced corporate finance and derivatives subjects.

There is a LOT of theory that underlies accounting, hell financial accounting theory is a whole subject, and the audit subject is pretty much 99% theory too, as is 3rd year management accounting, talking about all sorts of management and organisational behaviour paradigms.

 

[sunjet]

@ bobness: what i've experienced in first year and what they say about electives, i seem to disagree, in finance we do what we've been doing in qma (ie. annuities, dividends), which is no way as easy as adding numbers on the calculator for accounting, but the hard part about accounting is deciding what numbers to add.