Finance is crap (1 Viewer)

[schmeichung]

After approaching to my last final exam for my undergrad degree (i major actuarial and finance), i can make a conclusion that finance being taught in UNSW is loads of rubbish which u cant learn anything. I studied 1612,1613,2624,3616,3635,3636,3640 but I hardly think they are useful at all

For people who still deciding which major u should do, I suggest you to do actuarial, or econometrics if you want to be a quant person (besides BSci in maths/stat).

 

[hiphophooray123]

After approaching to my last final exam for my undergrad degree (i major actuarial and finance), i can make a conclusion that finance being taught in UNSW is loads of rubbish which u cant learn anything. I studied 1612,1613,2624,3616,3635,3636,3640 but I hardly think they are useful at all

For people who still deciding which major u should do, I suggest you to do actuarial, or econometrics if you want to be a quant person (besides BSci in maths/stat).

lol.......

 

[IMTB]

hmm I am thinking of doing finance at unsw tho...>< but not a quant person...I mean its not bad is it? what they teach there?

 

[gizmo99]

After approaching to my last final exam for my undergrad degree (i major actuarial and finance), i can make a conclusion that finance being taught in UNSW is loads of rubbish which u cant learn anything. I studied 1612,1613,2624,3616,3635,3636,3640 but I hardly think they are useful at all

For people who still deciding which major u should do, I suggest you to do actuarial, or econometrics if you want to be a quant person (besides BSci in maths/stat).

Well, let me say this also after 3 years of actl/fins:

FINS1612- Kathy/Jerry combination was alright; was one of the better courses in my mind, albeit a difficult mid-session exam i remember; 7.5/10.

FINS1613- Zhien: not too bad (except English), liked the easy tutorial component, but the difficult and time-consuming final made a lot of ppl go from HD->CR in the end 7/10.

FINS2624- Henry/Julia: found the course interesting, but the lecturers were slow for actl ppls. (very ignorant, and Henry is too obsessed with his own textbook and hence his way of thinking) 5/10.

FINS3616- Alfred: similar to FINS1613; his english is not always perfect, (sWARRRPs) but he dropped a lot of hints here and there, so I enjoyed this course quite a bit- much more than FINS2624 when it was done together; probably 8/10.

Haven't done 3635/3636/3640, but I'll choose 2 of them probably since im doing bCom/bEc (which one would you recommend?) Li Yang seems to know her stuff on options, but another fob teaching it =P;

How about 3636 or 3640 with the actl background, recommend?

Alas, you should have done FINS3641, it was lectured by a weathered pro. By far the best and most practical finance course in the undergraduate selection. Professor Balzer knows his stuff, and teaches in a different style, and there is a tad more work such as working papers/theses to read, but nonetheless, it is undoubtedly my recommendation for any finance student to undertake (added bonus of no final exam). 9/10

As for actuarial courses--

ACTL1001- Sachi; haha, no need to comment there- in the end, it was good to give us a taste of how hard things got and can become; a real eye opener, and his imaginative nature has got me answering to his challenge! 8/10

ACTL2001- complete debacle and shambles! Randell, was fairly poor, and many heads were rolling throughout the Tuesday arvos in biomed. 5/10

ACTL2002- Having Sherris appeared to be the pinnacle of our actuarial major. It seemed a honour for him to teach us mere-humble 2nd years for stats. However, his tests were no means easy, and I still remember that weird inverse Jacobian Transformation in the final; There's just far too much content to stuff in this course, and with Sachi taking the reigns of ACTL2002, i don't know how much harder it could possibly get. 6.5/10

ACTL2003- Tom teaching us was strange and peculiar at times i rckn. He went as slow as a tortoise, and cut off about half the stuff on time series at the end since we lagged badly (no pun intended!) Sachi said it would be the hardest course, but in my mind, I'd enjoyed 2003 a lot more, similar to what Arlene (the tutor said 2003 easier than 2002) 7.5/10

ACTL3001- Bernard was a nice change for us. He was hard-working and enjoyable to listen to. He sets difficult but not impossible challenges to us. His methodology of lecturing is fairly smooth. Only downfall was the tutor, he was utterly hopeless... 8/10

ACTL3002- Emil was similar to Bernard in style, I don't mind his style either, and the course was slightly easier than ACTL3001 coz a lot of the stuff was already taught by Sachi back in first year; sad to see Emil leave for the States though. 8/10

ACTL3003- Sachi again, thought we wouldn't see him again, but alas! What a ghastly exam that was...not really in the mood to figure out whether I'll pass this one. I'll just put a plum 6/10

ACTL3004- finally, Changki, may I suggest ... Barely audible and although he knows his stuff, he simply cannot lecture; which leads us to go and study for ourselves. Skipped a lot of the lectures, simply being, there is no point being there, when he rips the tests from the tutorial questions word to word. 4.5/10

 

[Loz_metalhead]

Hmmm...I'm majoring in accounting and finance. So far I have done fins1612 and 1613. I enjoyed fins1613 alot more.

 

[phrred]

Ive done 1612 1613 2624 n 3616

Its basically what you expect in a finance major. You learn lots of basic knowledge and some formulas and models which usually dont apply/work in the real world but what would you expect, if they worked no-one would be doing anything except trading!

 

[schmeichung]

well..if u want an enjoyable uni life and wam booster, then do finance
One think that I learnt from actl is to be able to self-study. u need to be able to do that if u want to succeed in actl, but not for fins. fins stuffs are very easy to understand and workload is very light. stuffs that they teach is interesting, but not in very good way i guess.

@gizmo99
I think Changki is slightly better than Randell, at least he taught what is relevant and in the exam, still remember Randell didnt teach binomial option but was in the final that killed me.

By the way why would sachi always set peculiar exam? he would have to scale anyway if everybody does poorly. and I reckon sachi is not as "arrogant" in 3003 as in 1001 anymore, yet he still made very different exam

I agree with u Benard and Emil were the best.

 

[schmeichung]

do not take fins3635 if u already done actl2001 and actl3004 as i reckon these 2 actl subjects already covered fins2624,fins3635,fins3640 stuffs

Thomas Henker didnt teach 3640 last sem but Johna Reeves instead so I cant really comment on 3640

 

[schmeichung]

Well um...there's your problem...you wanted to be a quant person....

but I dont see people(companies) valuing finance major much

studying actl can be actuaries (at least getting some of the exemptions)
studying acct can be acctant (CA or CPA)
studying fins can be fins analyst? (but u dont even need fins background to get CFA etc)

 

[Loz_metalhead]

What majors would you suggest in a commerce degree then? Excluding actl.
I will be doing fins and acct.

 

[volition]

studying fins can be fins analyst? (but u dont even need fins background to get CFA etc)

I don't actually know much about the CFA designation, but would studying a finance major help with learning the material for CFA? I hear the CFA exams are very hard... Although I get the feeling that finance wouldn't really help that much with CFA.

Still, I've seen a fair few job ads looking for either an accounting or finance major, so I still think a finance major is a decent use of a major. Personally I'm acct+fins though, so maybe I'm just biased

 

[pete_mate]

but I dont see people(companies) valuing finance major much

studying actl can be actuaries (at least getting some of the exemptions)
studying acct can be acctant (CA or CPA)
studying fins can be fins analyst? (but u dont even need fins background to get CFA etc)

true, that's why you do honours in finance

 

[schmeichung]

acct+fins is fine as long as u r studying one of the professional accredited major

I mean, studying fins leads u nowhere close to specialist unless u keep on studying and do research (honors, phd)

some of my friends taking CFA exams (level 1) and they said the stuffs not hard, but a bit much. From what I heard is there are many materials we have already studied in 1st year, ie micro/macro, some acct fins subjects

 

[Casmira]

i like finance :S

 

[Pace_T]

i like finance :S

yeah well of course anyone doing business law as their other major is going to like finance, lol.
thats why i like accounting, which is actually crap also.

 

[jazzyman]

I just did fins3641-Security valuation and i must say it was probably the most challenging fins course I've done so far but probably the most interesting one. The textbook they use is craphouse but Les (lecturer) was really good and interesting. Exams were pretty tough and the assignments aren't so straight forward

 

[jazzyman]

Worst fins course FINS2643....dont do it......they tested you on precise words from the textbook and I heard they used an outdated textbook in sem 2 2007 (superannuation laws changed in 2007 and they continued teaching old laws....completely pointless)

 

[dvse]

Agree with the original poster - FINS major is remarkably useless - you can't do anything technical and don't have anywhere near enough maths (let's be honest, virtually none) to understand any current research. On the other hand, the non-technical bits can be learnt on the job by anyone with a couple of brain cells and don't require a degree major at all.

Oh well, such is life. The only way to go if you are interested in the quant stuff is a pure maths degree - actuarial doesn't really come close either. The material in ACTL2003/3004 is taught in such a way that it's impossible to get a real understanding and ACTL2001/3002 are so anachronistic it hurts.

I sincerely hope that thanks to the availability of first-hand info on the net more students will be able to see through marketing bullshit put forth by university departments and get something resembling a decent education.

 

[lizbon]

i don't think finance is useless, depends on what you choose for your electives, i did fins 3635, 3625, and 3641, and really enjoyed the latter two.

depending on what field you wanna work in, i thought security analysis and acf were very practical, but nothing compares to what you learn on the job.

 

[lifesucks]

if finance is so useless, why do companies look for it?

i thought if i want to work in the back office of a bank or investment firm, i would have to have a finance major. so i was gonna do it simply because it offers me this career path, your thoughts? can i go the same path doing acct?

acct and finance sounds very solid, but acct and actl is promising as well. or even actl and finance...?

EDIT: a few more q's now that ive read more:
2. i see if i want to do actuarial studies, a few core units are changed to harder math units. so i presume if i want to give up actl for another major, its perfectly fine because it was harder? or do i have to do the core units they replaced?
3. CPA? CA? can i get both? which is better?