Why does everyone fear ACST300 - Insurance and Superannuation practice (1 Viewer)

[abchakraborty]

I'm thinking ahead to what I'm going to do next semester. I've heard that ACST300 is notoriously hard and that if you're not acturial to forget it.
When I talked to a few friends about doing it, they said it was academic suicide.

I'm moving onto 3rd year subjects in my Bcom accounting/B app Finance double degree. I've had my eye on this subject for a while. I want to do it because my interests in finance lie in superannuation. In fact, that's the industry i'd eventually like to go towards after graduation. Hence, this subject's attraction.

But so far nobody i've heard from has said anything but scary things about the subject and how it's GPA destroying, assuming you can pass at all. But it's all just hearsay and what they've heard from someone, who've heard it from someone else etc. Nobody I know's actually attempted it.

Could someone who's done the subject or knows more details about it give some insight, or post the unit outline if you have it? Is it really that horrible? What makes it so hard, the macquarie uni handbook has only 1 paragraph about the subject and there are no warning signs...only that you need a GPA of 2 and have done ACST101...not even ACST201 or ACCG253 as prerequisites.

 

[Supra]

Firstly, its an actuarial subject that is open to all.

ACCG250 would never be a pre-requisite for a unit like this.

I know most of the older actuarial guys would have done this already, but dont know if they post here anymore.

From what i've heard its not so bad, just lots of reading and perhaps boring. ACCG323 is much the same I guess.

I know a friend whos done this last year, and he says it involved a lot of reading.

You're an accountant wanting to move into Superannuation, just do what you will enjoy Im sure anyone does well in something they put effort into.

 

[redruM]

Super = the future. :uhhuh:

 

[abchakraborty]

Firstly, its an actuarial subject that is open to all.

ACCG250 would never be a pre-requisite for a unit like this.

Oops, my mistake. i meant ACCG253 - Financial management
i fixed it in my original post. I wonder... did they open it to all to attract people to attempt and fail the subject so that they could scale the acturial students and let more of them pass through? the Uni has to maintain the bell curve of f/pass/cr/d/hd after all...

Yes, super is definately the future, in more ways than one. It's where most of Australia's financial assets will be held in the future, increasingly in self managed super funds.

This guy's sentiment in this month's Money magazine interview came to memory when posting this.

"Find something to do you love and you'll never work again" - Peter FitzSimons from the SMH/2UE.

The dillema is whether to be shrewd and think about which subject will I be able to acheive a better mark relatively easily to boost or maintain my GPA, or go for a subject whose content interests me but seems to be a high risk and a big unknown.

hmm...atleast I have a while to think about it.

 

[dracover]

its not hard. its an easy subject if u can do some self learning.

the reason y its considered or was considered hard.

1. negative marking throughout. that means for every incorrect answer u dont just get 0 u get -1 this means u can pass under other exams but get 0 for 300.

2. i heard this changed but in my yr there were 2 papers. the first paper allowed u to get a pass (this is very easy) and u just needed to pass this easy paper. the second paper allowed u to get cr and d's and stuff and this paper is very hard.

3. compulsory for actuaries so in a class of 300, 150 of them are actuaries and if they've made it to 3rd yr they're the top bunch also. since rem the uni is sng this means well u'll need to do realli well to compete with most of them not saying u cant though i know plenty who've succeded =D

but overall its a pretty relaxed subjected lecture notes are sufficient to pass.