Commerce - What's it like?

[acinod]

Any tips? Anything I should know about LOL?

Particularly actuarial studies since it's not really your typical commerce degree.

[dc302]

Dunno about actuarial studies but most of my commerce friends aim to get an internship at the end of 2nd year. Having a nice resume helps a lot, so joining clubs/committees and having jobs is a good idea!

[tram]

Join all the commerce clubs, even if not directly related to your major, all offer you opportunities to meet up with people from firms which is important to get info out of/network, obvs join ASS (actuarial student's society), join CSS (commerce student's society), they are just a party club, but membership is useful as they throw bbqs and stuff, plus comball (you'll hear about it when it's time).

Try hard to get an internship at the end of second year, it's harder for actuarial given the highly limited amount of places, ofr other majors it's much more important ~75% of grad places are given to ppl who did the internships.

First year is pretty easy-especially given your atar, so use first year to chill out and spend time on south lawn, in clubs and having fun, they studying will come in second year haha. Having said that try vaguely to keep up with lectures even if it's a quick 15 min skim of the week's lectures, it will help come swotvac.

that's all that comes to mind, feel free to ask any more specific questions

[acinod]

Thanks for the insight!

Now for some more specific questions:

1. Will I have time for a part-time job? I assume it's possible in first year but once you get to second year, the studying begins and you don't have time?
2. Why is first year easy?
3. What are commerce students like? Who will I usually hang around with? Is it the actuarial kids, the commerce kids, or do all faculties hang out?
4. What are the tuts like?
5. Should I get a laptop if I major in actuarial?
6. Should I buy the books? (actually don't know which books I need because the handbook says 'to be advised')
7. What is needed to get an internship for actuarial?

[tram]

Thanks for the insight!

Now for some more specific questions:

1. Will I have time for a part-time job? I assume it's possible in first year but once you get to second year, the studying begins and you don't have time?
2. Why is first year easy?
3. What are commerce students like? Who will I usually hang around with? Is it the actuarial kids, the commerce kids, or do all faculties hang out?
4. What are the tuts like?
5. Should I get a laptop if I major in actuarial?
6. Should I buy the books? (actually don't know which books I need because the handbook says 'to be advised')
7. What is needed to get an internship for actuarial?

1. Definitely, and not just for first year, but thoughout uni if you timetable smartly/get a job where the hours are flexible

2. The subs are more introductory and getting you used to the area of commerce and designed to give you and insight into (what was at least for me) new stuff, so they had to aim it at people who had little/know knowledge. Having said that, work is required, but it is much more conceptual than VCE. You learn to work smarter, not harder and hence less time and hence 'easier' (yay for cliches!). Perpahs easier is the wrong word, but for someone with your atar, understanding the concepts won't be too hard and you'll be used to doing much more work than you'll need to.

3. Impossible to say, you will find that you will find almost every type of person in every course. You of course have the super uptight people who already own shares, dead set of accounting/finance majors and scarrily determined, but not all people are like that. There are the cool people, and you find them by syaing hi to everybody. essentially it's impossible to say that all commerce stdents shard one particular personality trait. As for hanging out, it's with whoever you share break with, regadless of faculty. You will inherrently spend a fair amount of time with the accelerated math kids due, and in second semester, actuarial kids (you'll pretty much share all lectures) but you can hang out with who ever you want.

4. Tutes are fun, most interactive learing you'll do. You basically work through problems with other students and then go throuhg answers with the tutor. This is one of the best places to meet people because you are forced to see them each week and talk to each other so don't be a douche in the first tute and you'll end up with some friends. Also once you go to the first tute try to work out who is talkative (or hot ) and sit on the same table as them, nothing more awks than being the only one on your table that talks at all in each tute-i've been there...

5. No real reason to (or for any other major unless you're doing computer programming or something). But it can be handy-just generally

6. Depends what type of person you are. Definitely doable with out them, and don't bother with new editions, they're all the same pretty much, but i found it helpful, especially during swotvac when there was less help avalible. It's handy to have something there to flick throuhg when you're at home and read something and don't fully understand it.

7. This will be pretty generic, because really there's no set criteria: Good grades (i.e. your exemption ~75% adverage to be safe), extra curricular stuff (clubs/societies/a job/sport), personality, good communication skills (i.e. confident talker) and being financially/economically aware doesn't hurt. But internships are a while away for you anyway haha so relax.

[dc302]

Particularly about 1. Some people cram their timetable in to 2 day weeks, considering they only have on average 12-14 hours per week...makes me wonder if this should even be considered 'full time study'

[acinod]

Particularly about 1. Some people cram their timetable in to 2 day weeks, considering they only have on average 12-14 hours per week...makes me wonder if this should even be considered 'full time study'

Unfortunately since I intend to major in actuarial and do chinese for breadth, I have to go uni everyday for semester 1. Attached is a timetable I made last year.

And thank you so much tram, really helpful!

Got another specific question: Could you give a quick review of all the subjects in first year? Is accelerated maths hard? What about the economic subjects? And finally I heard accounting is basically VCE accounting but super crammed. Similar to you, I didn't do VCE accounting. How did you find it?

Thanks heaps in advance.

[dc302]

Accelerated maths 1 is not hard if you were good at maths in yr 12. Accelerated maths 2 (the real analysis bit) can be hard even if you were good in yr 12, but once you get over the learning curve it becomes pretty easy. Seeing as you got 43, you seem more than capable of doing well in these subjects.

edit: btw nice looking timetable!

[Bozo]

Do you know of many people looking to end up in masters of engineering through commerce?

And how are they coping, feel about it?

[Kennybhoy]

Any tips? Anything I should know about LOL?

Particularly actuarial studies since it's not really your typical commerce degree.

Thanks for the insight!

Now for some more specific questions:

1. Will I have time for a part-time job? I assume it's possible in first year but once you get to second year, the studying begins and you don't have time?
2. Why is first year easy?
3. What are commerce students like? Who will I usually hang around with? Is it the actuarial kids, the commerce kids, or do all faculties hang out?
4. What are the tuts like?
5. Should I get a laptop if I major in actuarial?
6. Should I buy the books? (actually don't know which books I need because the handbook says 'to be advised')
7. What is needed to get an internship for actuarial?

1. Yeah it's good money so you can support lunch since you wake up too late to make a sandwich in the morning .
2. It's easy to pass?
3. Well personally I'm a ratty kid who tends to get yelled at least once by every lecturer. In Intro to actuarial, I sat in the ratty back corner that was constantly talking and was hated by everyone else.
4. Well I've noticed other people are social and it can be fun unless you get a fob for ARA then you're fucked for that subject.
5. Not really required to be honest.
6. LOL.
7. Can't answer yet.

Btw, I'm averaging like 68 for first year so don't take my approach.

[tram]

Particularly about 1. Some people cram their timetable in to 2 day weeks, considering they only have on average 12-14 hours per week...makes me wonder if this should even be considered 'full time study'

Unfortunately since I intend to major in actuarial and do chinese for breadth, I have to go uni everyday for semester 1. Attached is a timetable I made last year.

And thank you so much tram, really helpful!

Got another specific question: Could you give a quick review of all the subjects in first year? Is accelerated maths hard? What about the economic subjects? And finally I heard accounting is basically VCE accounting but super crammed. Similar to you, I didn't do VCE accounting. How did you find it?

Thanks heaps in advance.

a) lol, have fun with chinese for breath... it's.... time consuming know at least one person that did chink for breath in sem 1 also doing actuarial

b) accelerated maths-just don't fall behind, seriously, with 4 lectures a week it's all to easy to get behind very quickly, as our AM2 lecture put it "if you do not do maths for three days in this subject you will die"

accounting: again, keep up, pretty easy really, at least conceptually, you have to be meticulous as fuck though, i got a balance sheet to balance... twice the entire year on the first try i reckon, just be super careful and go to as many consults (consults are where a room is assigned and a tutor will sit there for an hour + and anyone that wants can go into the room as ask them questions-almost like a private tutor in high school) as you can and just sit there and work through problems with the tutor. No one turns up to the consults until week 11/12 (like being completely serious) at which point they're full.

Having said that, i followed none of this advice for accounting and did poorly as a result, so do as i say, not as i do

intro actuarial: the maths is easy, just a *shite* load of formulas you need to memorize, learn how to derive, what they mean, and how to apply them

micro:easy, you'll be fine, can sum up the entire course with a supply and demand diagram, or else, just watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVp8UGjECt4

macro: harder that micro, but still not that hard, much more interesting, favorite subject all year

sidenote: yeah i realise how much of a nerd i sound actually taking first year subs seriously =.=

[acinod]

Thanks again guys.

Now I was wondering do the lecture times change every year?

If not I was wondering how you guys did your timetable? Also when do we get to make our timetable? Is it better to make it early because then we get the best times or does it not matter because you can rock up at any lecture since they don't really mark rolls?

[Gloamglozer]

Thanks again guys.

Now I was wondering do the lecture times change every year?

If not I was wondering how you guys did your timetable? Also when do we get to make our timetable? Is it better to make it early because then we get the best times or does it not matter because you can rock up at any lecture since they don't really mark rolls?

If the subject is offered in semesters 1 & 2, it usually changes every semester.  If it's only offered annually, then yes, you can pretty much be sure that they change every year.  We do our timetable through the Student Portal, which you'll hear about once you get an offer.

For first years, yes, it's best to make it as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.  With regards to the lectures, yes you can rock up to any stream to want unless it is absolutely full.  If that's the case, depending on the lecturer, they might kick out those people who don't have seats because of OH&S.  If it is constantly full, then the lecturer will "threaten" to enforce a "method" of checking who's meant to be in that stream.

[tram]

my general advice about timtabling:

1) Put your tutes early in the week. You cover last week's materiel in tutorials and it's better to get one topic out of the way before getting too into new material otherwise you're trying to learn lots of stuff constantly.

2) Don't cram all your subs together, spread them out during the day, this means you are at uni for longe each day. This is what you want, you want breaks in between classes to hang with new people you met in the previous tute/lecture, and time to chill and catch up with old friends. Also if you can get an hour free before each tut-always handy to catch up on any tute work you were meant to do during the week. Also free time gives you time to go to consults.

3) Make sure you make sure you have time to get form class to class-the uni campus is quite big and running across it is not fun early in the morning with a bag, look at a map of the uni when doing your timetable

More specifically for acinod, all three apply, you're timetable is a bit cramped, each to their own, but seeing as you finish at 12 most days you can afford to loosen up your timtable a bit. Also number 3 particularly applies to you, you've got some crazy distances between some of you lectures, e.g. Copland and the spot, copland and the law building, the spot and the asia centre, be away that crossing grattan street takes forever, the light cycle lets pedestrians cross every 3 minutes and you have about 5 second to cross the road before it goes green for cars again. Note that this is just my advice and you're perfectly entitled to timetable how you want, it's just how i would do it.

[Russ]

Arriving a couple of minutes late to lectures isn't worth changing a pretty good timetable for.

And just jaywalk across Grattan st, works for me