Struggling with FNCE10002

[santosaaron]

Hey guys!

I'm new here so please be nice!!

Basically, I am having a lot of problems with FNCE10002. I don't know if it's meant to be this hard because everyone else seems to get it.

I am not a mathy person at all. However, I can usually work hard at it and get decent grades in math. But no matter how hard I work in this subject, I don't get anything.

I got through economics fine, even accounting was straightforward for the most part. But finance makes ZERO sense. All I see are formulas!

I'm really really stressing out. Should I withdraw now before it's too late? How can I improve when I don't get ANYTHING? Note: I don't benefit at all from tutoring so that's not an option!

Sadly this is a core subject for Commerce so I have to eventually take it before I graduate. Is it possible to delay taking it until like 3rd year?

[M909]

Hey Santosaaron, welcome to AN I did this subject last semester. Although I do consider myself a maths person (hence my major), I found that the textbook reading was very confusing, and I could barely follow it, and also mostly felt this way in lectures. TBH, for me nothing really sunk in until I actually tried the pretute questions, (and this usually took longer than it should have), and really took the time to review the lecture slides. Also, based on what my friends doing it this semester and last semester said, the general opinion was that it was hard to understand what was going on straight away, so definitely don't feel discouraged! (I ended up with a H1 in the high 80s BTW)

As for your situation, I'd say you don't need to understand all the formula derivations. You just need to know what the formula is doing (e.g. For PV = c/r*(1-(1/1+r)^t), you should be thinking something like, this is the PV annuity formula, it's how much someone would need to invest today to get t payments of c at interest rate r in future ect). But if you're really really struggling, talk to stop 1, since unless it's a prerequisite (but I'm guessing you'll be avoiding FNCE subjects if you feel this way), you could surely delay it.

Best of luck, hope it all works out for you

[Shadowxo]

Hi
I did FNCE10002 last semester. As finance is a core subject for commerce I'd recommend against withdrawing unless you absolutely need to, as it's better to get it out of the way (personal opinion).

I would consider myself a "mathsy" person but I still found it hard to absorb and understand the material, especially with the 2h lectures. I'd really recommend going over the notes, I always like to understand most formulas as I can better apply them and remember them, so I'd recommend understand the basic formulas and memorising the less basic ones. For the discounting formulas, try to understand them, and for ones like annuity understand how it uses the perpetuity formula, at least the basics. For some of the more confusing topics (the first ones that I found hard to remember and apply was the perpetuities annuities etc) I wrote out the name, formula, what n refers to, and a description of it. I found after I did this and did the pretute questions I was better able to understand it.

It may be a good idea to rewatch the lectures and/or go back over the notes for a couple hours. Try to understand how they're using the formulas and ideally where they come from. Also make use of the summary slides at the end.

Finance can be straightforward once you understand it but it does take a while to understand it (I found I often took longer to understand it than a few other subjects). It can be quite confusing at times, so you do have to spend a bit of extra time going over the lectures.

Good luck

[Orb]

Going to go against the grain here, but i'd suggest if you're really struggling and you feel that the best you'll get for this subject is 50-60 despite your best efforts, then you'd be best leaving it til 3rd year (until your grad roles are sorted) before taking the subject.

If you major in Accounting/Eco or like Management/Marketing then this is the only finance subject you'll ever need to do.

In 2nd year your WAM is of a decent bit of importance (at least to get over the minimum benchmarks for several companies) so you don't want that to compromise your standing especially with only 8 completed by then.

[santosaaron]

Going to go against the grain here, but i'd suggest if you're really struggling and you feel that the best you'll get for this subject is 50-60 despite your best efforts, then you'd be best leaving it til 3rd year (until your grad roles are sorted) before taking the subject.

If you major in Accounting/Eco or like Management/Marketing then this is the only finance subject you'll ever need to do.

In 2nd year your WAM is of a decent bit of importance (at least to get over the minimum benchmarks for several companies) so you don't want that to compromise your standing especially with only 8 completed by then.

Instead of looking to get grad jobs after I graduate, I'm actually set on trying to get into honours for economics.

Would this change anything?

[Orb]

Instead of looking to get grad jobs after I graduate, I'm actually set on trying to get into honours for economics.

Would this change anything?

The eventual goal is a grad job right? You can get one locked up before you start honours (eg a few of my friends have a nice grad job locked up halfway through second year so they're free to do whatever they want whether it's honours or a gap year before they start work).

You'd ideally not want to wait until your honours year before you start applying because you'll a) miss every internship available virtually and b) you're competing against people who've got that internship edge against you.

I'd probably just take a look and see whether this is really really too hard for you and if you think that it's hard to the point where you have no confidence of getting a score above 65, then don't do it until third year because it's a lot easier competing as a third year against first years

P.S FMAA's doing a First Year Fundamentals panel session - you'll probably get a lot of value in relation to jobs and internships if you turn up to that

[spectroscopy]

hmm. One thing that really helps the kids I tutor and assist with finance is to forget the formulas at first and try to understand the concepts and flow of money. seeking 1 on 1 help and getting the concepts down and diagrams drawn etc. will really help with your understanding.  Finance is a weird subject where nothing makes sense until something in ur brain just clicks and suddenly it becomes the easiest shit on the planet. some people never find it click (its usually the teachers fault) and they have to memorise things. I would recommedn going to lecture consultations or 1 on 1 sessions with your tutor and just try to get the concepts down and understand the flow of money and shit. dont withdraw from the subject because it is something you really should just knock out asap. i would forget about formulas until you "get it" then learn how to do the math

[santosaaron]

The eventual goal is a grad job right? You can get one locked up before you start honours (eg a few of my friends have a nice grad job locked up halfway through second year so they're free to do whatever they want whether it's honours or a gap year before they start work).

You'd ideally not want to wait until your honours year before you start applying because you'll a) miss every internship available virtually and b) you're competing against people who've got that internship edge against you.

I'd probably just take a look and see whether this is really really too hard for you and if you think that it's hard to the point where you have no confidence of getting a score above 65, then don't do it until third year because it's a lot easier competing as a third year against first years

P.S FMAA's doing a First Year Fundamentals panel session - you'll probably get a lot of value in relation to jobs and internships if you turn up to that

Again, thanks for your reply!

I have one last question for you specifically. You said that if I do eco/accounting, (the majors I actually want to take) I won't need any Finance subjects beyond this core one. But wouldn't doing finance earlier help complement my economics and accounting studies? I've noticed a bit of the content does overlap but not sure if this is the case for later years

hmm. One thing that really helps the kids I tutor and assist with finance is to forget the formulas at first and try to understand the concepts and flow of money. seeking 1 on 1 help and getting the concepts down and diagrams drawn etc. will really help with your understanding.  Finance is a weird subject where nothing makes sense until something in ur brain just clicks and suddenly it becomes the easiest shit on the planet. some people never find it click (its usually the teachers fault) and they have to memorise things. I would recommedn going to lecture consultations or 1 on 1 sessions with your tutor and just try to get the concepts down and understand the flow of money and shit. dont withdraw from the subject because it is something you really should just knock out asap. i would forget about formulas until you "get it" then learn how to do the math

Thanks for the encouragement! I think I'll try my hardest for now but if things don't improve then I'll withdraw


Mod edit (K888) - merged double post

[Orb]

Again, thanks for your reply!

I have one last question for you specifically. You said that if I do eco/accounting, (the majors I actually want to take) I won't need any Finance subjects beyond this core one. But wouldn't doing finance earlier help complement my economics and accounting studies? I've noticed a bit of the content does overlap but not sure if this is the case for later years

I think so. If you're looking to major Acct/Econ it tells me that you're probably more quantitatively driven than someone majoring mktg/mgmt, so I'd suggest for you to keep it. There's a pretty valid case for someone doing the latter to push it to third year but i'd agree with the rest here in your specific circumstance and really see if you can do it.

[dankfrank420]

I think it's also part of the learning curve that everyone experiences coming to uni.

High school was pretty easy and basically just required you to spam out practice questions and you were set for high marks. For uni, the content is more difficult, taught at a much faster pace, the workload is far greater and requires you to have more than a superficial knowledge of what you're learning. It's extremely common for most people to only really "get" a subject when they're in SWOTVAC, so don't worry if you're struggling now.