Bachelor of Arts

[cameotodd]

Hey guys!
Just got accepted into a BA at Melbourne and although I am very excited, my first preference was always BCom. However, I'm hoping to transfer mid-semester or after a year. Now my question is regarding my subject selection for BArts. I'm hoping to do a double major in both Economics and Psychology. Just wondering what would the contact hours be for doing these majors together and if theres anyone in the AN community who has done these two majors, would you please let me know your experience. Also, I know that you have to do a arts foundation subject which is compulsory and was wondering which ones are the least tedious and 'easy'. So please, anyone doing a BA at Melb, tell me about your story and how you like it

Thanks guys

[literally lauren]

Hey guys!
Just got accepted into a BA at Melbourne and although I am very excited, my first preference was always BCom. However, I'm hoping to transfer mid-semester or after a year. Now my question is regarding my subject selection for BArts. I'm hoping to do a double major in both Economics and Psychology. Just wondering what would the contact hours be for doing these majors together and if theres anyone in the AN community who has done these two majors, would you please let me know your experience. Also, I know that you have to do a arts foundation subject which is compulsory and was wondering which ones are the least tedious and 'easy'. So please, anyone doing a BA at Melb, tell me about your story and how you like it

Thanks guys

Re: contact hours:
I'd estimate in the realms of 14-20 depending on your specific subjects; maybe with one day off if you're lucky. Econ units tend to just have one/two lectures and a tute, though some of those lectures run for multiple hours (...this might not be until 2nd and 3rd year though... idk) but Psych will have longer lab sessions or practical seminars if I remember right.
I know this isn't the most intuitive process, but if you use the Handbook pages for Econ and Psych to work out what subjects you want to do (plus electives/breadths/foundation, >see below<) you can work out your exact contact hours by tallying up each subject individually.
Then go here and type in the subject codes for each one, (then select Semester 1, grid version - that's the one that makes the most sense to me) which will bring up a mock timetable so you won't have to wait till the start of Feb to see what your schedule will look like. It's great for planning days off 

Re: foundation subjects:
I'm afraid none of them are overly interesting
You've got: Aboriginalities, Identity, Power, Language, Reason, and Representation. I think I mentioned this in a subject review at some stage, but each one is quite specific to the diciplines they're most closely associated with. So Reason, which is mainly taught by members of the History and Philosophy of Science Department, is basically just 'Intro to Philosophy.'

As far as I can tell based on talking to others (since I've only done Reason myself)
Aboriginalities = Sociology/Anthropology with a lot of race relations and a bit of History thrown in
Identity = Media Studies/Sociology
Power = Politics with a lot of Marxism a bit of Gender Studies, and a bit of History
Language = Linguistics
Reason = Philosophy + a bit of Literature
Representation = Media Studies and Gender Studies

If any of those overlap with your interests, then that should make it easy.

I kind of grouped Aboriginalities, Identity, and Representation as 'stuff-I-would-get-sick-of-real-quickly,' have no interest in politics, and figured I'd got enough language-y/linguistic-y stuff on my study plan already, so I took Reason and didn't totally hate it #ringingendorsement
Most of the lecturers were decent, and I was pretty interested by the content even though the assessment was really convoluted. The whole pretense of Foundation subjects teaching you how to navigate university isn't very true; you're better off finding a good tutor in another subject (preferably one in your area of study, so Econ and/or Psych) and just pick their brain about how to do well, as it's so dependent on the discipline anyway. Like, I learned skills in Reason that I'm yet to call upon in any other subject just because I went from that to a mostly Lit+Linguistics combination of subjects.

They're all fairly 'easy' in terms of workload, but it can be tough to score well when the marking criteria and even the actual task outline is as nebulous as Reason's was.

You will also have to do these ridiculous "workshops" which are unanimously regarded as a waste of time. Maybe you'll be lucky and score a decent tutor, but we just got stuck with someone who took us through such riveting topics as 'what's a topic sentence' and 'when should you use capital letters in essays?' -.-

Alternatively... if you're looking to transfer from Arts to Commerce (which may or may not be the case, but would be a viable option if you kept up high marks in your Arts units and planned ahead,) you could just... not do a Foundation subject You're required to do one at some stage in the course of your Arts degree; most people do it in first year because completing it can be a prereq for 2nd and 3rd year subjects, but there'd theoretically be nothing stopping you from doing a semester, or even one or two years of Arts just with Econ and Psych subjects, then transferring into Commerce. Maybe someone else'll be able to provide more info regarding the kinds of marks you'd want to aim for to be a competitive candidate for transfers.

Or if you're definitely set on Arts now or think you might be interested in a particular Foundation subject, you can just pick one of those. They don't have a very good reputation in general, but I have heard good things about the Language and Identity ones.

Hope the enrollment process is relatively smooth! I remember wasting days trying to work out how to do things right... esp. subject selection O.o

[oj101]

I've just done exactly what you're planning to do - did the BA, then transferred into BCom after 1 year.

Just a heads up, mid year intake is nearly impossible to get into. There are extremely few places available relative to the start of the year, most of these spots go to overseas students. The ones that are left pretty much only go to people who already have the 95 ATAR and 80+ WAMs. Try midyear anyway, you never know, a 1 in a million chance is better than a definite no if you don't apply.

Transferring at the end of the year is easy. Recommended is 75, and the 'minimum' is 70. But I know a couple other friends who got in with 67 - no SEAS. Commerce has quite a lot of drop outs (a lot of students burn out, find that it isn't for them, transfer out etc) and also, not as many people apply to transfer in BCom. It's all internal, and the admissions process is 100% supply/demand, the minimum doesn't really exist so you should be fine either way. One year there may be too many places and too few students so you could get in with a 50 WAM. Other years, an unusually large amount of people with 80+ WAMS take up all the places, making the minimum 80. Obviously, do the best you can - don't rely on my own anecdote. But generally, it much easier than an ATAR.

Contact hours for econ is 3 hours per subject per week. (2x 1hr lectures, 1x tutorial) Psychology has 5 hours contact per subject per week (3x 1hr lectures, 1x 2hr tutorial or practical - combination of either) I didn't do psych, but be warned that it's very competitive as you have the smartest of the Arts, Biomed and Science kids, you have to do a lot of reading, the course content is relatively difficult, there's harsh marking, bell curving and the high contact hours will make uni a lot harder to manage as you already have very little time to do all the assignments, readings etc properly and on time. I know this from freinds and having considered the subject myself. So if your aim is to get into BCom, TBH, I can't see how psych would help you that much - you would just be making things harder for yourself. Maybe consider an Arts subject - but it's up to you. I'd recommend just an Econ major with a bunch of random Arts subjects that sound interesting to you.

As for the Arts foundation subject, Power is the best one and the most popular. I personally really enjoyed the subject, it involves a lot of discussion about contemporary politics, economics, globalisation etc which is the most commerce-y one. Keep in mind that Power is only in semester 1, and others will be in semester 2. So you have to plan your course around that.

Some tips - the key to doing well in an Arts essay is just regurgitating key themes/concepts, but structuring and presenting them in a logical and interconnected sequence to "form an argument". Also, treat your commerce subjects like a full time job! You really have to understand it, not rote learn it! It's not like high school where you listen, do homework then exams will be a cinch. You have to really understand the underlying mechanism of the theory. It's labour intensive and tedious, but its the only way.

Hope this helps, and best of luck

[cameotodd]

@lauren Thanks so much for the information!! I seriously love how much effort you put into replying to someone! Also, thanks for the information regarding the foundation subjects, I am interested in politics so I would probably go with Power if I do end up doing one because I thought that they needed to be done in the first semester in the first year :/ And yes I am so confused with the enrollment process ahhhhhh so many decisions need to be made haha
PS. Don't know if I ever thanked you for helping me throughout VCE this year for all your effort with regards to reading my essays. Without you and bangali_lok, a 40+ in English would've never happened!! So thank you so much.

@oj101 Ah good to know someone has successfully done what I plan to do. Regarding the difficulty of psych, I get what you're saying and might reconsider doing it, but I really enjoyed psych in VCE and thats why I was considering doing it. What sort of art subjects did you take up during your BA period? and what was the difficulty of these subjects? I'm just scared to do a subject which I've never done before and getting poor grades in. Also, during the mid-year intake, would they look at my ATAR religiously? (93.15) and what chances would I have of getting in with roughly a WAM of around 80 and 93.15 atar? Also, were most of your subjects credited when you transferred over? Or did you have to start the commerce degree from scratch? Also, is it possible to apply for transferring both mid semester and end of year, as in, if you apply mid semester and were unsuccessful, could you try again at the end of the year? Sorry for so many questions and thank you so much for replying.