Bachelor of Commerce / Bachelor of Laws (1 Viewer)

[coopert]

This is a topic which I'm sure has been posted to death, but I'd still like some advice.

Mine is a long story, but I undertook Law/International Studies at University of Canberra in 2008. It was such a great Uni filled with awesome people, and incredibly brilliant staff; however I just did not feel at home in Canberra.

So I applied to transfer, and I got an offer for Law/Commerce at Macquarie for 2009; however I defered it to spend a year working/traveling/the usual cliche.

Anyway, so 2010 is coming up and I'm just wondering if anyone could please give me some advice regarding this course?

Has anybody here completed it? Is anyone currently undertaking it?

What is the campus like, and are the lecturers and tutors friendly and helpful?

Is the degree well regarded?

What is the campus atmosphere like? Are there parties/social happenings?

I have heard that Macquarie has longer student hollidays, and that the breaks are also more frequent? (This would be awesome if so!)

On a side note, I went to the Open Day and was impressed with the shiney new train station. Very cool!

People had told me before that Macquarie was distant and inaccessible from the City, but in my opinion it was DEFINATELY much more accessible than UNSW! (Although I am biased in my ingrained hatred of buses, and preferance towards trains).

 

[tha-ish]

Hey mate,

Congratulations on the offer! I'm in my final year of law/psych at maq, but I started off doing law/commerce-economics. Don't worry! - I only dropped out of commerce because i LOVE LOVED macro-economics and I HATE HATED micro-economics, and it was a far too bipolar life for me.

So my answer to your first question is no, I am not currently undertaking, nor have I completed, a law/commerce degree.

However, I can tell you that the campus life is pretty awesome! If you liked open day, you'll definitely enjoy spending more time at maq. The uni-bar is great if you feel like kicking back and having a lazy day or catching up your mates over a couple of beers (very tempting in your last year - TRUST ME!!). They have random events, like toga parties throughout semester and conception day is always a heap of fun.

Lecturers / tutors are hit and miss - especially in law - but you need to be able to research / read-the-textbook to get through the law portion of your degree anyway, so it's not such a big deal. When I say hit and miss, I mean sometimes awesome (e.g. Torts with Penelope Watson) and sometimes woeful (e.g. Admin law with Iain Stewart). But you'll get that at any uni, and when you have a really good lecturer / tutor (which is most of the time), they're usually really good.

Again, focusing on the law degree, I think a Maq law degree is becoming increasingly well regarded. I did a clerkship at Allens Arthur Robinson last year and, as usual, most of the clerks were from Sydney, but the next biggest contingent were from Maq (yay!).

Also, at Maq, you get a two-week mid-semester break but no stu-vac (which is stressful, but manageable, as most law units have exams / take homes right at the beginning of the exam period).

Hope that helps mate - good luck and post anymore questions if you have them. If you want a tour guide / question-answerer in person, I'm usually in on Friday afternoons, so feel free to post a request. The maq community is pretty tight, which is another great thing about the uni.

Cheers,
ish

 

[coopert]

Hey mate,

Congratulations on the offer! I'm in my final year of law/psych at maq, but I started off doing law/commerce-economics. Don't worry! - I only dropped out of commerce because i LOVE LOVED macro-economics and I HATE HATED micro-economics, and it was a far too bipolar life for me.

So my answer to your first question is no, I am not currently undertaking, nor have I completed, a law/commerce degree.

However, I can tell you that the campus life is pretty awesome! If you liked open day, you'll definitely enjoy spending more time at maq. The uni-bar is great if you feel like kicking back and having a lazy day or catching up your mates over a couple of beers (very tempting in your last year - TRUST ME!!). They have random events, like toga parties throughout semester and conception day is always a heap of fun.

Lecturers / tutors are hit and miss - especially in law - but you need to be able to research / read-the-textbook to get through the law portion of your degree anyway, so it's not such a big deal. When I say hit and miss, I mean sometimes awesome (e.g. Torts with Penelope Watson) and sometimes woeful (e.g. Admin law with Iain Stewart). But you'll get that at any uni, and when you have a really good lecturer / tutor (which is most of the time), they're usually really good.

Again, focusing on the law degree, I think a Maq law degree is becoming increasingly well regarded. I did a clerkship at Allens Arthur Robinson last year and, as usual, most of the clerks were from Sydney, but the next biggest contingent were from Maq (yay!).

Also, at Maq, you get a two-week mid-semester break but no stu-vac (which is stressful, but manageable, as most law units have exams / take homes right at the beginning of the exam period).

Hope that helps mate - good luck and post anymore questions if you have them. If you want a tour guide / question-answerer in person, I'm usually in on Friday afternoons, so feel free to post a request. The maq community is pretty tight, which is another great thing about the uni.

Cheers,
ish

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah one of the things that drew me to Macquarie was the atmosphere and the people. Everyone was so friendly (granted, this was Open Day so they were probably told to be haha), especially in comparrison with UTS and USyd (which I felt was kind of cold).

The impression that I got from USyd and UTS was that people only go there to listen to lectures/sit in tutorials, and then go straight home with little to no interaction with anybody else. Whereas Macquarie seemed to have more of a social aspect which I think is pretty cool

With the lecturers, I realize that there are crap ones in every Uni, but it's good to hear that for the most part they are pretty good. So you did a Clerkship? Does that mean that you're aiming to practice Law after you've finished?

I'm not sure about Law/Commerce, that's what I got the offer for so I know I'll have to do it at first, but I was thinking of transfering into Law/Finance or something like that after the first semester or year.. If I wanted to do Law/Economics, would I just need to choose 'Economics' related units within my Commerce degree, or is it a completely seperate degree? When you transfered, did you have any trouble with transfering?

Also, at the Open Day they took me around the Student Housing. Do you live on the residences, or do you know anyone who does? Would you recomend staying there? Usually it would not be my kind of thing; but I'm starting to see the advantages with living right next door to the Uni, getting all your meals prepared for you, and meeting heaps of people

 

[tha-ish]

Hello again,

I got the same impression from USyd and UTS especially! It's all about studying and getting a job - and not much else. Having said that, I met a lot of cool people from those unis during the clerkship. I think your personal mentality is very important, but all the same, the uni culture plays a big part in your experience. USyd have this new flashy law building and they have rooms / lecture theatres and libraries named after law firms (which I think is ridiculous). We stick to naming building after people that you've never heard of before, which I think is much more preferable (hehe)!

Ok, down to business. I definitely aim to practice law after uni and I've taken up a grad position at Allens. I don't like planning my life too far ahead, so I won't exclude myself from working somewhere else in the future, but I'm pretty happy there and I think I will stay for quite some time.

Re the subjects you do in your first year and possibly transferring later - choose units where there is a lot of overlap with another degree you may be interested in - it's very easy with commerce, applied finance, economics and the like - first year is pretty standard - you have to do macro, micro, stats, econometrics and some electives (plus whatever law units you have to do in first year). The subjects in the first year are generally the same for most commerce and commerce related degrees. Check out the undergrad handbook - Programs by Degree - 2009 Course Handbook - Macquarie University

Search for the subjects you have to do for each degree - you'll see a lot of overlap!

Finally, I haven't heard great things about living on campus, but at the same time, I don't know a great deal about it. I would explore your options and perhaps take a look at the on-campus accomodation, then decide if it's for you.

Cheers,
ish