Uni Stuff > University of New South Wales
UNSW Course Reviews
jakesilove:
That is literally sickening. If anyone gets higher than an 85 in any of my courses, they are hailed as the next Einstein/Geoffrey Robertson (depending on which degree obvs).
Edit: If someone reminds me when I get back to Sydney, I'll post up all of my subject reviews
RuiAce:
I'll post up my shittier mark one next then lol
RuiAce:
Subject Code/Name: ACTL2111 - Financial Mathematics for Actuaries
Contact Hours: 2 hour lecture, 1 hour Excel laboratory, 1 hour tutorial
Assumed Knowledge: The prerequisites specified are ACTL1101 and MATH1251. Alternatively, students undertaking Adv Maths majoring in Quantitative Risk are only required MATH1251. Whilst concepts are reintroduced, you should know what's going on in the finance side of ACTL1101, else this course becomes ridiculously hard even at the start.
Assessment: 15% Mid-semester exam, 15% Assignment (Broken into 4 mini-submissions; 4 Excel submissions with the final submission including a report). Final exam weighted 70%
Lecture Recordings? Yes
Notes/Materials Available: On Moodle, ample tutorial exercises and past papers are posted up. Short video recordings of Assoc. Prof. Benjamin Avanzi explaining the concepts are also available for you to view.
Textbook: Broverman, S.A. (2015), Mathematics of Investment and Credit, 6th Edition (5th Edition also permissible). Not compulsory, but from what I was told it contains some nice summaries and questions. A separate solutions manual to the questions can be purchased.
Sherris, M. (1996), Money and Capital Markets, Pricing, Yields and Analysis, 2nd Edition, Allen & Unwin. Never heard of anything about this one.
Lecturer(s): Dr Jonathan Ziveyi
Year & Semester of completion: 2017/1
Difficulty: 3.5/5
Overall Rating: 2/5
Your Mark/Grade: 71 CR
Comments:
This course is compulsory for any student undertaking actuarial studies to meet their Part I exemptions. This course contributes to CT1.
This course draws upon certain and contingent cash flows demonstrated in ACTL1101 as well as a few elementary concepts in probability. The first half of the course is mostly revision of material in ACTL1101, however more complex cash flows are also observed (e.g. the increasing annuity).
Proper treatment is given to various other concepts such as bonds. Unfortunately, I feel as though many concepts such as forwards, options and swaps were not explained very well. This lead to quite a disaster on my part in that I had attained substantially high marks prior to the exam, but the inability to do a whole module (there are 6 modules) lead to a mark I never wanted to see at uni.
Many concepts in Excel are very introductory, however powerful tools such as VLOOKUP are certainly studied. Much of the assignment is based off Excel as well. Note that the finals did not examine Excel,
This course helps make concepts in ACTL1101 appear more clearer, however it is of my opinion that without FINS2624 (Portfolio Management, compulsory to all finance majors in commerce degrees) this course can be substantially difficult than what was perhaps intended. Note that not everything in the course was hard; only certain aspects of it.
RuiAce:
Subject Code/Name: MATH2901 - Higher Theory of Statistics
Contact Hours: 2 x 1 hour + 1 x 2 hour (Total 4 hours) lectures, 1 hour tutorial
Assumed Knowledge: One of MATH1231/MATH1241/MATH1251. As the course outline is combined with MATH2801, no explicit requirement of a mark of 70 was stated. You should be familiar with basic probability and are expected to know elementary calculus techniques such as integration by parts.
Assessment: 20% In-lecture Mid-semester exam, 2 x 10% Assignments (2017 - Group assignments. 2016 and prior - Individual.)
Lecture Recordings? Yes (First time this has happened as the lecturer was encouraged by students to use the document camera)
Notes/Materials Available: An online course pack is uploaded onto Moodle and to be honest it has too much. The lecturer is nice and is selective of content to teach, and his notes that he uploads should be used as the primary reference. Whilst rarely, sometimes the course pack also explains differently to how the lecturer teaches it (in particular hypothesis testing).
Textbook: N/A
Lecturer(s): Dr. Libo Li
Year & Semester of completion: 2017/1
Difficulty: 2/5
Overall Rating: 5/5
Your Mark/Grade: 95 HD
Comments:
This is one of the three compulsory Level 2 courses to all mathematics disciplines, offered in semester 1. It is the higher counterpart of MATH2501. Students intending to major in mathematics and statistics must take this course or the standard version.
This course can (and should) be used to replace ACTL2131, the course that contributes to CT3. However, MATH2901 must be combined with MATH2931 to fulfil the exemption requirements.
The level of statistics taught in MATH1231/41 is quite minimal, and serves to be at most an introduction to the subject area. This course, along with its ordinary counterpart MATH2801, seeks to commence a formal treatment of statistics and some of its uses in society. Whilst number crunching is not avoidable, it is to be reminded that this course is theory of statistics. The emphasis on the theory of statistics means that it focuses on how the actual models of stats has been developed, and techniques that fall out of results we prove.
In practice, the theory of statistics is ignored and taken for granted. This course serves as a reminder as to how everything came to be, so that concepts observed from here onward makes sense.
Statistics is something I thoroughly enjoy now that I'm at uni (it was terrible in high school). I personally loved this course. However it is worth mentioning that the maths in this course is FULL of tricks and a good understanding of algebraic/calculus techniques is required to perform excellently.
RuiAce:
Subject Code/Name: FINS1613 - Business Finance
Contact Hours: 2 hours lecture, 1 hour tutorial
Assumed Knowledge: Nil, but an equivalent of 2U mathematics is highly recommended so that the maths make sense.
Assessment: 10% - Participation (A bit easier to earn than in ACCT1501), 10% - Homework (You have unlimited attempts at the questions), 10%+15%+15% (Total 40%) Separate quizzes, with the first quiz being super easy. Finals weighted 40%
Lecture Recordings? Yes
Notes/Materials Available: In semester 1, there are HEAPS of resources offered. Live streams before the quizzes and finals, the entire QUESTION bank for quiz 1, and sufficient past quizzes for the other forms of assessment as well. Tutors are generally really nice and send you their tutorial slides as well.
Textbook: Fundamentals of Corporate Finance (2nd Australian Edition), by Berk, DeMarzo, Harford, Ford, Mollica, and Finch, Pearson Australia, 2014. Not necessary at all; preferably use the lecture slides and MyFinanceLab.
Lecturer(s): Dr. Robert Tumarkin, Ying Dou
Year & Semester of completion: 2017/1
Difficulty: 1.5/5 (Biased!)
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
Your Mark/Grade: 94 HD
Comments:
This course is one of the choices for the first year electives of all commerce students. This course introduces students to the bread-and-butter of finance and makes up the fundamentals of everything in the finance major. It becomes a core course for actuarial students to fulfil CT2.
This course was ridiculously easy for me given that I had undertaken ACTL1101 in advance. Most actuaries are aware that taking this course before FINS1613 makes it significantly easier than otherwise, and hence the bias in the difficulty rating. For many students, this course tends to achieve a difficulty of 4/5 as they are either not well versed with maths equivalent to 2U level, understanding of how multiple cash flows work or feel bombarded by the lengthiness of several questions.
This course does not neglect theory altogether, however the focus is on the calculations. FINS1612 (only required by finance majors) introduces more theoretical concepts.
It is imperative that students understand quickly what goes on in the first few weeks of the course as everything is somehow tied to it. Topic 3 (Capital budgeting) is notorious for being the hardest of the lot; students who are currently taking (or have previously taken) ACCT1501 find it slightly easier, withs students having taken ACCT1511 finding it a breeze as it's just ACCT1511 dumbed down.
Many students highly recommend this course be undertaken in semester 1 and here are the reasons for it
- The lecturer influences this the most. Robert Turnarkin is a godsend; he literally sets his assessment tasks in the best interests of the students (no details disclosed here). His level of 'chill' rivals that of the legendary ECON1101 lecturer Alberto Motta.
- The amount of resources in semester 1 is abundant. The amount of resources in semester 2 is very limited (not even many past papers let alone the livestream)
- The assessment is generally easier in semester 1.
It should be noted that the lecturer for semester 2 is not "bad". He just discloses limited stuff compared to Rob.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version