I am a WSU graduand who completed his degree a few weeks ago. WSU is an interesting university in the sense that, the stigma that is usually associated with it tends to precede its positive aspects, which is something that I find quite unfortunate. More importantly, it is not entirely accurate, although not entirely incorrect either. For instance, the prodigy Nedom mentioned that a fair share of students that attend WSU are dropkicks. This is true and is a major criticism I have of the university. However, I would like to note that such students do not constitute a majority and while perhaps not to the extent of Go8 universities, WSU has some incredibly bright students. In terms of my experience, one of my friends who studied the same major as me finished with a 6.5 GPA, constantly achieving distinctions and high distinctions in her subjects. Another student I studied with as part of the advanced degree (she majored in finance) had a 6.7 GPA. Those were students that I personally knew, meaning that it is likely that there are other students with even higher GPAs. Of course, the percentage of low-achieving and high-achieving students differ across different programs, regardless of the university.
To my knowledge, WSU does not offer a Bachelor of Actuarial Studies. I think Nedom was probably referring to MQ, where the Bachelor of Actuarial Studies is indeed a good degree to study. WSU offers an Economics major as part of the Bachelor of Business and a Financial Planning major as part of the Bachelor of Accounting, both of which can be considered similar to actuarial science.
Some positive aspects of my experience studying at WSU include:
- Quality of education - Overall, I was satisfied with the quality of education. Most academics were definitely highly knowledgeable and delivered the content of their respective subjects at a high standard.
- Flexibility - Here, I am referring to class times (tutorials in particular). The university offered good flexibility in terms of class times (including day and night) as well as mode of delivery (on campus and online), which I found convenient.
- Opportunities - Similar to other universities, WSU has partnerships with different companies, which can give students a good chance of finding employment opportunities through the university while they are still studying. In my case, I was able to work at PwC (a Big 4 accounting firm) for a few months (after which I had to quit because I did not study a finance-related major but also because two jobs were hard to maintain) and I am thankful for the experience.
When choosing a university, it is a good idea to consider whether a particular university is better than another in the field that you are interested in studying (this applies to all universities). I would recommend WSU for fields such as:
- Business
- Nursing
- Medicine
- Engineering
Fields that I would not recommend WSU for (unless it is the only available option) include:
I intend to write an unbiased and more in-depth review of WSU soon. Be sure to check it out (this also applies to anyone else to whom WSU may be an option).
I hope this helps!