I decided to make this informational thread for those considering this course in 2013 and beyond. The Bachelor of Business degree is offered at the Berwick, Caulfield and Peninsula campuses. For the purposes of this thread, we will focus on the Caulfield campus.
The table above shows the indicative ATAR scores for the BBus degree at the various campuses at Monash University. Note, the ATAR scores for specific degrees such as BBus (Acc), BBus(Mgt)/BBus(Mkt) etc. offered at the Caulfield campus are a bit higher because your majors are already selected upon gaining entry into the course, whereas BBus is just a general degree.
The six compulsory core units you undertake in first-year BBus, regardless of your majors at Monash University, are as follows:
- AFF1000: Principles of accounting and finance
- BTF1010: Commercial law
- ECF1100: Microeconomics
- ETX1100: Business statistics
- MGF1010: Introduction to management
- MKF1120: Marketing theory and practice
You also study another two units in first-year; they can be elective units (units you can do from other faculties) or units which are needed to be completed if you have chosen to major in Marketing and Management, for example. This is the same throughout all three campuses - just with slight variations in the unit codes.
Why choose BBus at Monash University?The most common reason many students do the BBus degree is that in high school they didn’t do Mathematical Methods (CAS) which is a pre-requisite for BComm (Bachelor of Commerce) at most Victorian universities, however they have a keen interest in commerce/business. Either that or their ATAR score didn’t meet the requirements for BComm.
Workload for BBus?As with many commerce/business students, the contact hours are quite low. It is about 12 hours per week generally-speaking, with 2-hour lectures and 1-hour tutorials in first-year. Your timetable would be quite flexible as you can choose to do 2 days a week at uni or spread your units out. You study four units a semester and note, there are exam hurdle requirements for all BusEco units. This means you need to get above a certain mark on the final exam to pass the unit - you will fail the unit and have to re-take it if you don’t meet the exam hurdle requirement (i.e. 50%), even if you do extremely well on all your assignments etc. throughout the semester.
What is Caulfield like?The Caulfield campus has fewer clubs and holds fewer students on campus in comparison to the Clayton campus. This doesn’t mean Caulfield is a bad place to study at though! It is in a convenient location as the Caulfield railway station is right outside the campus, and there are trams which run to the city - as well as connecting buses. There are also a variety of clubs/societies such as BCSS, MFA, C.A.S, MMSS which are well worth joining. The link below highlights the various clubs and societies on campus:
MONSU Caulfield - Club listing.
The majority of students at the Caulfield campus are doing the Bachelor of Business degree, so you won’t feel out of place. The rest are made up of Arts and Health science students. There are a lot of international students studying at Caulfield too, which means you’ll have the opportunity to meet a lot of people from different and diverse backgrounds.
Downsides to Caulfield?The biggest downside to studying at Caulfield is that it is seen as a boring and lacklustre place to study at because of the less vibrant atmosphere. I would partially agree with this at times. However, if you immerse yourself in university life, especially in your first year - you will find this not to be the case.
BBus v. BComm?This is arguably the question which gets asked the most. I have quoted what I said recently in another thread, as well as what shinny said.
EDIT: If you're looking ahead, BComm is favoured by the larger firms over BBus - but that shouldn't discourage you from keeping BBus as a viable option.
Just answered your question. That said, if you had a BBus student averaging HDs and a BComm student averaging Cs, I think you'd take the first option and vice versa. The stigma attached with doing BBus as opposed to BComm can hurt your employment chances, undeniably so, but it is never just the degree itself which you come out with that defines whether you get the job or not.
That's not to say it can't be overcome. My friend who went into BBus ended up beating the majority of my commerce friends (some of who are unemployed) and got into Ernst and Young. He had interviews for other Big 4 firms as well. My understanding is that the degree is just a part of a much much larger process. You might lose a point there, but there's plenty more to be gained elsewhere.
The Bachelor of Business degree isn’t a dead-end in terms of job prospects. If you maintain a high standard of grades throughout your degree and involve yourself in extracurricular activities such as becoming a committee member of a club, taking up volunteer opportunities etc. - getting employed won’t be too difficult.
If you want to get the most out of your degree, join clubs and societies to make new friends. O-week is a great chance to join various clubs and societies as well as to get a feel for the campus itself. Networking with others, especially at the corporate functions held throughout the year, is an invaluable tool as it is very much useful in the area of business and commerce.
tl;dr: MONSU Caulfield - the main student body on campus, runs 'Sex It Up week' in semester one every year. Best week ever.
Hope to see some of you at Caulfield next year!