comm/law v comm/sci(maths)?

[florallover]

hey, sorry if this isnt the right place to post this.

my brother is in year 12 and trying to decide whether to do comm/law or comm/sci (maths major) at monash. he doesn't do any physical sciences, but he did methods last year (47 raw) and does spesh and loves maths. in general he just loves analysing problems even if not maths-related. his written skills are really good too.

he doesn't know what he wants to do at all obvs but it will be something in the commerce/business field. maths is a generic degree, and essentially law has become a generic degree for people who don't want to practice law (and yeah i know he could get to law and love it, same with getting to comm and hating etc). for both degrees we've assumed that the transferable skills he picks up from it will be more important than the content itself.

so question is: which set of generic skills is more useful for a commerce-y future, maths generic skills or law generic skills?

he'll probably get a high-99 enter (slash, will kill himself if he gets below 99.9) so is a bit put off by the low enter score required by comm/maths... but at the same time he would be willing to do it if he thinks he'll smash it/find it more interesting than law. he also refuses to do a single degree, so melbourne is out, or move interstate, so syd/anu are out.

(also, if anyone has any info about the quality of the maths programme at monash that would be great- all my monash friends do law/med/eng/arts, clearly i need a token maths friend.) thanks!

[ninwa]

enwiabe is majoring in maths at Monash so I'll let him get to that...

Re: law, it's definitely true what you say about the skills being more useful than content. The law changes every year anyway, it's the problem-solving, writing and logical reasoning skills you get from the degree that are more valuable to employers.

I guess it depends on what area of commerce he wants to go into. Surely he has a vague idea?

I would assume for things like accounting, actuarial studies and finance, maths would be more useful (that said PLENTY of top-notch accountants only have a commerce majoring in accounting degree and I'm guessing the level of maths in an actuarial studies degree is more than sufficient on its own).

If he wants to be in management, I have definitely seen far more CEOs with law degrees than science (actually I don't even recall seeing one) BUT the companies I look at are all financial industry/insurance/superannuation related. Probably big corporations would also prefer a law degree as it's always useful to have knowledge of corporations/contract/taxation etc. law. Commerce students also study these subjects but not to very much depth.

Also, if for some reason he decides he loves law and wants to practice, com/law graduates are quite valuable to commercial law firms. I've seen many advertise for interns and specifically state that only com/law grads need apply. So there's also that added flexibility.

[florallover]

he isn't sure about the comm major, except that it wouldnt be marketing or management or 'soft' comm- he wants more analysis/mathsy majors, so probs eco, acc, finance, or actuarial? i guess the problem with actuarial though is that you have to take all the sequences to get accredited and i dont think hes ready to get specific yet. strangely he didnt do any business subs in yr 12 except legal, apparently his school doesnt do well in them compared to literature or whatever, so hes happy that comm makes you do the 6 compulsory intro units so he can get a feel for what hes interested in. thanks for the advice with law.

[enwiabe]

Quantitative mathematicians (known as quants) can be paid truckfuls of money.

They're the people who get paid by the stockmarket traders to model market trends mathematically, do risk analysis on hedge funds etc.

They all involve an incredible amount of detailed mathematics and would probably be a challenge enjoyable by anyone who loves their maths.

Now, I do Mathematics at Monash and I'll be perfectly honest that their Mathematics programme is not as good as that of Uni of Melbourne or ANU etc.

That said, their Maths is still pretty darn good and you do learn a lot. You can do financial mathematics units at monash which are basically devoted to how maths is used in finance. I would definitely recommend Comm/Sci over Comm/Law to your brother - he sounds like he might be bored with all those long, loopy words

[schmalex]

If he likes maths and problem solving, doing economics could be a good idea. Economics requires a lot of problem-solving, and complements maths quite well. So I'd say Comm\sci

[Eriny]

I think he's better off doing maths, there are lots of careers in maths that aren't commerce out there and if maths is really what he's interested in, I think he should follow that. Also, people with a good knowledge in maths have a real competitive edge for commerce-y careers. It would probably be more beneficial than a law background, I would think?

[Akirus]

Quantitative mathematicians (known as quants) can be paid truckfuls of money.

They're the people who get paid by the stockmarket traders to model market trends mathematically, do risk analysis on hedge funds etc.

They all involve an incredible amount of detailed mathematics and would probably be a challenge enjoyable by anyone who loves their maths.

Now, I do Mathematics at Monash and I'll be perfectly honest that their Mathematics programme is not as good as that of Uni of Melbourne or ANU etc.

That said, their Maths is still pretty darn good and you do learn a lot. You can do financial mathematics units at monash which are basically devoted to how maths is used in finance. I would definitely recommend Comm/Sci over Comm/Law to your brother - he sounds like he might be bored with all those long, loopy words

Makes me wonder if I should still be considering Monash... how much difference is there in the mathematics at Monash v ANU?

[humph]

I have a friend who did straight science at Monash and ended up getting a job in the finance sector (something options related). The last year and a half of his degree he focussed on financial mathematics, which apparently Monash is quite good at, and his mad maths skills were pretty much what got him the job (they didn't care about people's background in finance at all, just their mathematical ability).

[Cthulhu]

I have a friend who did straight science at Monash and ended up getting a job in the finance sector (something options related). The last year and a half of his degree he focussed on financial mathematics, which apparently Monash is quite good at, and his mad maths skills were pretty much what got him the job (they didn't care about people's background in finance at all, just their mathematical ability).

You'd make a fortune then.

[TrueTears]

Comm/sci because they complement each other pretty well.

[humph]

I have a friend who did straight science at Monash and ended up getting a job in the finance sector (something options related). The last year and a half of his degree he focussed on financial mathematics, which apparently Monash is quite good at, and his mad maths skills were pretty much what got him the job (they didn't care about people's background in finance at all, just their mathematical ability).

You'd make a fortune then.

Yeah his starting salary is something like $80,000, and it grows pretty rapidly...

[florallover]

thanks everyone. does anyone who does maths at monash know if you can get around the minor requirement somehow in a science degree? as mentioned before he doesn't study any bio/chem/physics etc, he's good at science(/everything) but he isn't interested. i know statistics is on offer - what's this like for a maths-minded student? is it really computery, or mathsy or what?

if the maths options are too limited he'll probably do law. he's an all-rounder in terms of ability and is pretty apathetic atm as to what he'll end up doing. i don't do law but i've seen what friends have to do for their assignments and exams and i think he could be good at it. but maths is his favourite, plus i think he's been put off by how easy he finds year 12 english/literature/legal studies (i know they're nothing like law! but he doesn't) and has a bit of a low opinion of 'writing subjects' despite hearing how hard law is.

[ninwa]

Law is only thought to be 'hard' because most people have never seen the kinds of questions and the style of answers they want you to write on exams/assignments before.

Once you actually figure it out, the subject matter itself isn't actually very difficult at all.

If he wants a challenge I think he should do maths. (This coming from a mathematically challenged person though )

[florallover]

we've just realised there aren't enough maths and statistics courses at monash to constitute an entire degree without having to take science/astrophysics units, and he won't go to anu, so looks like it will be law. thanks everyone.

[mark_alec]

Doing a bachelor of commerce at Melbourne Uni with maths subjects as breadth followed by either more maths, more commerce, work or post-graduate law wouldn't be an option?