Actuarial Studies at Mac or UNSW (1 Viewer)

[bladenia]

the title says it all. which one........
macquarie claims to be the better, as they have been much well established, with its graduates goin to UNSW to lecture. However, ppl say life there is boring and yeh...... hopefully i can get a scholarship also.
new south easier to get into, business law sounds interesting which isnt available at macquaire. Ppl claim better lifestyle and social life. the double major courses are also only 3 years compared to 4 yrs at macquarie, and 3 yrs business law/ actuarial studies compared to 6 yrs combined law/actuarial studies at mac. However i doubt i can get the co-op scholarship.
Can any1 help me out??????

After all i heard about actuarial studies about its drop out rate and all, i am also considerin to maybe change courses after 1st or 2nd yr... Ooo i also wanna live on campus........

And commerce chicks hot? true or false? and which wuld be the better UNSW or MAc?

 

[xing]

If u are interested mainly in actuarial, Mac is generally the more preferred place to be. However, getting a coop at unsw would be quite another story. I do actuarial at UNSW and from what i know, the dropout rate is quite high. we started with 250 and this has become about 110 after 3 semesters.

Chick-wise, UNSW wins hands down =P

 

[heman]

im also interested in act stds and contemplating this qq

but is unsw really that much worse than macq??
i really dont want to go there cos its like a 1.5hr trip there..

 

[xing]

When u go and ask employers, they generally think that there isn't too much difference between UNSW and Macquarie degrees. BUT, if u look at who gets the limited number of summer vacation opportunities at the big actuarial firms, u'd find that most of them are actually from Macquarie.

I think UNSW has a higher drop-out rate, as the UAI cut-off is lower than Mac. Also, the state of the job market isn't as bad as they made it out to be. If you get good marks and have some kind of a personality, employers should snap u up, no matter which uni u go to.

Just keep in mind that despite what they say, they tend to take more Mac than UNSW in their summer vacation opportunities, whatever that means.

 

[aditya]

so if the drop out rate is so high, then wouldnt that mean transferring into the course would be really really easy? like say, i did economics at unsw, got a credit avg and got 94uai? i could easily trasnfer into acturial stds yeh?

oh wait, i just realised... lol... i would be transferring into the bcommerce degree huh? so people that "drop out" of acturial woudl actually just be dropping their major, but would stick with their bcom degree *rats*

so in macquarie that would be a different story! as the course is completely independent!!!!

that arises another quesiton - is it possible to transfer inter-unis?

 

[bladenia]

hmmmmm yeh the distance is o so dang far from western sydney to mac. but then again so is UNSW.

Does any1 knwo the drop out rate at macquarie? and what would be a better double degree, Act + finance or Act + business law.........

How many ppl actually make it through the 3 yrs??????

 

[Constip8edSkunk]

my actl tutor says his year had about 60 something ppl at the end but then he was with the 1st group of ppl and things has changed since... there are 160 or so current first years and according to http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~nss/sitar/classes/ACTL_S2.html theres about 100 in 3rd year... personally i reckon just go 2 which ever uni is closer

 

[flyin']

1. UNSW doesn't offer double degrees in Actuarial for just 3 years; it's just like Macq - 4 years.

2. Macquarie was the first in the whole world to set up an internationally recognised actuarial department. And guess where the Head of Actuarials Studies at UNSW came from? (No guessing, Macquarie.) Also at Macquarie, they care about the quality of their Actuarial education. So if you want to become an actuary, study at Macq. If you want to just see what it's like go to UNSW. Having said that, if you get a Co-op at UNSW, take it - work experience is invaluable.

3. Macq has a better campus, seriously.

4. If you're considering changing courses already, go to UNSW. There isn't much at Macq besides Actuarial (no offence =p).

5. It's not a drop-out rate. It's a transfer-out-of-course rate. I guess people are more stubborn/stupid at Macq, cos most people don't transfer after 1 year.

6. Although the UAI is similar for Macq (~97) and UNSW (~96), you generally find the average UAI at Macq to be much higher (double degrees in Actuarial are 98.50+ at Macq). Whereas, at UNSW there are many more people near 96.

7. Vacation work tends to go to Macq cos you already have a Co-op, so they don't want any more from UNSW. The irony.

8. I'm prolly half-biased cos I'm from Macq (starting to get wasted in 2nd year).

 

[~*HSC 4 life*~]

i hear ANU is great for actuarial as well...

 

[Constip8edSkunk]

except its in canberra...

I think bladena is talking about double majors in commerce as opposed 2 double degree. bus law is a commerce major and is not a law degree so u cant compare that with the macq course. com/law at unsw is 5 yrs ... the 1 yr difference means that u wont b able to complete all your actl subj at unsw(u'll miss out on 2). if you are favouring the law side of the double degree then i'd definitely suggest going 2 unsw, but thats a different story

edit: also about transferring in, iwouldnt really recommend it unless you are fully committed as the course is pretty demanding... like in our recent 1st year quiz the mean mark out of 100 was 36 and the median 35

 

[heman]

about the work is it extremely demanding that you will have to sacrifice a lot of your social life for?

i really dont want to spend my uni life studying all day .. =\

can you guys some how compare the workload to highschool? like is it 10 times more or something? i just dont know if i can survive it...

 

[redslert]

about the work is it extremely demanding that you will have to sacrifice a lot of your social life for?

i really dont want to spend my uni life studying all day .. =\

can you guys some how compare the workload to highschool? like is it 10 times more or something? i just dont know if i can survive it...

MUAUAHAHHAA

what social life??!

 

[flyin']

If you want to do well, and you're not that bright, you won't have a social life.
If you don't care, and you're not that bright, I'm sure you can manage a social life (and a few extra years of uni).

If you want to do well, and you're bright, you can do whatever you want - study for even better marks and/or have a social life.

 

[Minai]

that's what accounting is for!
get a good paying job/career platform, AND have a social life too

 

[flyin']

good pay job (i dunno how you define good =p), career platform (depends on the individual of course, but not as good a platform nevertheless =D), social life (unforuntately you'll have one.. but at wot later cost )

 

[RIZAL]

just go to what ever uni is closer.

I visited UNSW a month ago and IMO it has a heaps sexier campus than macquarie. macquarie looks like a factory. and all the black stuff all over the libray makes it looks like it caught on fire and they tried to put it out.

UNSW has better chicks (the joint Actuarial ball proved this).

 

[golfstick]

what is all this talk of 'better chicks'

from what i've seen, there are no hot chicks at UNSW and the Macq actuarial dept is a similarly desolate wasteland

fucking hell, Macq dominates with talent, but don't go looking for it in the Actuarial department.

 

[redruM]

hahah there are exceptions....very few, but there are some.

i've noticed better "talent" this semester for some reason.

 

[...]

redrum, any chance these talents start hanging around the comp labs?

 

[flyin']

As a tutor said last semester, "You don't do Actuarial Studies to pick up. Look around the classroom." No more needs to be said. =p