FNCE20001 Business Finance vs FNCE20003 Intro Personal Finance

[Hancock]

So I have to do my last breadth and I've narrowed it down to these two since I completed Finance 1 in Semester 1 of this year. Any opinion on either of these subjects would be great. I'm leaning towards Business Finance because I think it would be good to know once I move away from technical engineering (possibility in the future) but learning about my personal finances would be good as well.

https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/view/current/FNCE20003

This subject is aimed at students envisaging a career as a financial adviser, and also provides a basis for future personal financial decision making. The role of the human life cycle upon personal financial requirements; the role of financial advisers in constructing an appropriate personal financial policy. Alternative investment options and sources of finance (including analysis of risk and effective return), with particular attention to retirement planning and the impact of taxes and government incentives.


https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/view/current/FNCE20001

Topics include basic institutional knowledge of the Australian finance sector and an introduction to the theory of pricing of risky assets, focusing on the Capital Asset Pricing Model; fundamentals of capital budgeting, including methods of allowing for inflation, and the treatment of risk; instruments of corporate funding; the theory and practice of capital structure and dividend policy decisions; and an introduction to complex financial instruments such as options and futures

Cheers

[sluu001]

If you want a relatively easy H1, I'd go Business Finance. It introduces you to all the primary financial instruments that are used for major investments; and the methods used to calculate the value of them. The maths is ridiculously easy and you are given a formula sheet as well.

The only catch is that you will need to study the theory in detail; because the examiners have to make the exam extremely "tricky" (not in terms of difficulty - but in terms of how obscure some of the questions can be) - so that students don't all get H1s at the end of it. (Some of my friends went into the exam with full marks; while the rest were averaging high 90s --> which became high 70s/mid 80s after the exam)

FNCE 2003 looks to me like what I just did in my Macro subject. Looking at how institutions/gov't price bonds & taxes to maximise utility for the different generations. (which can get horrendously difficult if the examiner decides to be mean -_-). Plus it'll probably also throw in some of the crap taught in Business Finance.

[Greatness]

I found Business Finance tough since it's quite a loaded subject - it teaches the basics from each of the core level 3 finance subjects. There's a lot to learn and in detail.
Introductory Personal Finance has probably been the easiest subject  I've taken.... Lectures were very boring, you don't learn anything that interesting tbh, you only scratch the surface of personal finance - you won't learn anything that will help you substantially in your finances. I think what you learn would depend on who the lecturer is though, I had Carsten who was pretty relaxed and liked to make things somewhat more interesting. He made the subject very un-finance like based a lot more on the behavioural finance side rather than conventional finance. i.e. you learn about cognitive biases.
I'd recommend Business Finance, it's a lot more useful even though it can be boring.