So I'm pretty much tossing up between these two courses.
Here's my predicament. I'm extremely eager and enthusiatic on doing actuarial studies, however, i'm not certain that i will cope with the maths - which is apparently ridiculously hard. Can someone confirm this? I did Mathematics ext 1, but not ext 2; would that be enough?
I don't think it's really that hard. You don't really need stuffs from High School maths(Definitely don't need trigonometry, mechanics, conics for actuarial). But you need the problem solving ability acquired in extension 2 to solve actuarial stuffs(in fact they are Statistical, Financial problems). As long as you are mathematics oriented person and attend all lectures and do all tutorials on time then you should be alright. In fact I think I would have get much lower grades if I have to write essays rather than solving actuarial problems.
Doing a BCommerce at UNSW and majoring at actuarial is also an enticing option. But this is where travelling comes into the equation. It would take me approx 1hours and 30 min to get to UNSW, whereas i would get to MQ in around 50 min.
Basically, employment opportunities do not differ much for actuarial course in both universities, as in the job fair there are roughly equal number of employees from both unis, and both unis really same.
Flexibility for transferring between degrees is similiar in both uni. In UNSW you just need to change your commerce/science major/combined degree at the student centre. However, if you would like transfer to different degree (for example, commerce to science etc) you WILL BE REQUIRED TO APPLY THROUGH UAC.
For macquarie, since the majors are written into degrees, changing your combined degree means a transfer to another degree. For degree transfers at Macq you ARE NOT REQUIRED TO APPLY though UAC. Just change it at the student centre. However, they do look at your GPA when you do apply for the transfer. So both uni works pretty similiar.
So, As Namu said,
-Scholarship
-Distance
-Double degree (If you double with bussiness related stuff it doesn't really matter).
-Do you really want to obtain exemption in uni (you need credit in both uni, but you can't repeat course with PASS in UNSW[someone please clarify this]).
-Do you like Big parkland campus or a bit small but modernised buildings?
-Preference between People/Planet compulsory electives of Macq and General education electives of UNSW
I think you can answer these questions easily and even if you are not sure there are ways to get around (Late round etc.)
Highschool sweethearts is DEFINITELY OUT OF QUESTION.
I was in similiar situation as Namu before..(google my prev post if you really have time).
So...
What do you guys think i should do?
How many people finish the actuarial course, or the percentage?
The reason why people find it difficult is due to the "Credit or above" requirement (It's easy to get pass but for credit the proportion rules kicks in).
For UNSW, I think the enrolment stats for ACTL1001, 2001,3001,4001 should give you the rough estimate of actuarial students across each year.
Class Search by Teaching Period
For Macq, we started at around 186 students and end up with 140ish at the end of 1st year (ppls get shocked by STAT171, not because it's hard but I think it's because some of them are slacking off by thinking 1st year is easy.). 128 by the end of 2nd year and 76ish by the end of 4th year.
How much on average do actuaries get paid?
Am i more likely to get a job if do marketing of finance, rather than actuarial?
Actuaries graduate do not get paid super duper ON AVERAGE. generally around 48k-52k/year(Much higher on FIAA qualification, 80k+). Also the traditional actuarial jobs only takes up one third of graduates each year. The one with super duper salary is a few and they obtain their job through better interpersonal skills etc. If you want a stable job with high graduating salary it's better to do Dentistry/Medicine/Optometry but by looking at your UAI it's not likely.
However, compared to finance/marketing/accounting actuarial studies do offer higher pay. Don't really know their job prospects though.
Will 1.5 hours travelling to uni and 1.5 travelling back have detrimental effects on my health or study?
Opinions please!!
Thanks
No, as long as you attend all lectures and do all tutorials you should be fine. There are a lots of students slacking off by skipping classes or don't do tutorials and cram at the stu-vac during the exam. This is definitely a terrible practice and should be avoided as it gives you higher risk of failing.
