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It all depends. If you want to actually understand anything about what you are doing, pure maths as the science major is the only option. No, you won't know much at the end either but at least it will provide a foundation. Also make sure to learn about numerical methods. Something like this...

University education in Australia is dumbed down beyond any hope. The school system takes much of the blame - even the best selective schools in the end teach to the worthless HSC curriculum or its equivalents. Another problem is the ever growing focus on "professional" degrees - it is...

It hasnt suffered nearly as much grade inflation as other commerce majors, so perhaps good marks are a better signal of motivation?

Most first/second year courses are taught at the level of symbolic manipulation - mechanically rewriting expressions following predefined rules. Most students have no idea what it may be taken to mean. Indeed this is a view shared by most lecturers - they don't teach in other ways because then...

Advanced Maths (essentially maths honours) is definitely a good degree (but make sure to at least do the 3rd year analysis, algebra and differential geometry courses) Actuarial is a combination of some extremely dated manipulations with geometric series (life annuities, loan schedules etc)...

"Financial maths and statistics" is one way to ensure that you dont know any real mathematics by the end of your degree. If you study pure mathematics, you will have more "mathematical maturity" and will understand applied topics easily. Here is an example of a sensible program: Harvard...

What you are saying is true enough. Another reason why it is "difficult" is that the whole degree is suspended in mid-air. It's not really possible to appreciate the underlying mathematics because you are only taught applications nor is it possible to get a feel for mathematical modelling...

I don't know about natural sciences, but in maths, physics or even computing one would almost certainly be incapable of understanding vast majority of current research after a 3 year BSc. In mathematics you don't see anything more recent than 1930s, for example.

Knowledge of programming (SQL, macros) can be pretty useful in finance, accounting etc at the early stages of your career as you are often working with data. You are not going to learn much from the IS major though. Computer science double degree is the only way to go if you are serious about...

Re: is my father right - how much of a factor is the 'reputation' of the uni? usyd vs It is silly to deny that reputation is not important. For example USyd would be considered vastly better for pure maths than UTS (especially at postgrad level) - this is primarily because its faculty is much...

See discussion in this thread: http://community.boredofstudies.org/136/faculty-business/199910/first-year-elective-info-systems.html#post4105913

"Advanced science" is a simply a marketing gimmick to attract students who are put off by low UAI cutoffs. It may impress some employers I suppose. Keep in mind that 3 year science degree is something of a joke and severely limits your options.

If you want to learn anything at all about "information systems" you should do BCom/CompSci

It sounds like a waste of money - it won't be easy to get a job if you already don't have relevant experience. IMO the only worthwhile course masters course they offer is professional accounting.

I think the only real choice is to do both as some kind of double degree. This is the only good thing about the Australian university system. Seriously.

UNSW is likely to be better if you do a double degree, like com/sci. MQ maths/stats, CS etc are not great by any stretch of imagination.

I'm not trying to say that it's bad not to like maths, only that if you don't you are not a "maths person"! One way to look at it is that mathematics is about finding powerful general ways to think about problems, not any specific problems! It is, however, vastly easier to understand a lot of...

Someone not familiar with "pure maths" at the very least at the level of the four year degree is not a mathematician in any sense of the word, applied or not.

I would argue that then they are not really "maths people" at all....

Interesting and remarkably pointless... Accounting is much more useful, or even finance/economics. If you are interested in maths, do pure maths, not actuarial.