barrage of questions about unsw and usyd commerce and maths degrees (1 Viewer)

[jjHasm]

(at unsw) in terms of applicable skills - adv statistics and statistics will teach you in the job world, is there any difference? or is adv statistics for people that want to get into academia (i.e. research, phd, proffesor lvl etc). Currently doing b comm (planning on majoring in finance)/b adv maths (planning on majoring in statistics) at unsw. If i want to do equivalent to this at usyd would i do b comm (finance)/b adv studies (statistics)?? what is the difference between the 'financial mathematics and statistics' major and 'statistics' major at usyd?

finally what is difference between statistics major at unsw and usyd


i want to transfer usyd or might even apply for sem 2 but my atar is 1.1 off b comm/b adv studies, but ive never tried making it first pref after i accepted first round offer to unswv(going to try it)

someone sell me a reason to go b comm/b adv studies usyd so i dont regret my decision
and yes ik theres no difference in career prospect and what the employer thinks blah blah ik
i care more about degree experience

 

[sida1049]

Advanced statistics is just mainstream statistics but with more mathematical rigour, and you learn more. Studying statistics at the advanced level is essentially necessary if you want to do research in mathematical statistics. Since you're majoring in statistics under B. Adv Maths at UNSW, you pretty much have to take advanced statistics, since you have to take an honours research year in a mathematical area of study.

At USYD, doing an advanced degree doesn't mean you have to take an honours year. So if you do B. Adv Studies as your second degree, you can choose to study statistics at the mainstream level if you want.

At USYD, the financial mathematics and statistics major can be interpreted as a statistics major, instead of half of your statistics units, you take the second and third year financial maths units instead. So really, it's the sum of half of an applied maths major and half of a statistics major.

I can't imagine there will be many differences between a statistics major at UNSW and USYD.

You need to sell yourself a reason to go to USYD; you shouldn't go just for the sake of going.

The main difference that I can see is that if you do go to USYD, you don't have the requirement of taking an honours year in stats/maths. Oh yeah, the equivalent degree at USYD can either be B. Comm/B. Adv Studies or B. Science/B. Adv Studies. You can major in both statistics and finance in either of those degrees, with the only difference being the prerequisites you have to do (shitty business core units vs choosing to do a range of non-maths/stats science units). You can also take the advanced version of the science degree at USYD without having to do honours; but you are required to take your science major in the advanced level (i.e. if they haven't changed how it works).

Your uni experience depends on your personality, really. If you haven't had much of a satisfying social life at UNSW, it's hard to see how that will change by changing unis.

 

[jjHasm]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the way I see USYD statistics major is that, first year I'll do fundamental core math subjects (just like every other math major), and then il jump right into statistics 2nd year, and the rest of the major will be statistics stuff. - which is what I want, I want more to spend more time and effort learning what my major is about. However with UNSW, I see it as - first TWO years you are doing random math subjects until the 3rd stage where you actually do statistics subjects. But since you are saying both majors at these unis is 'mainstream', im assuming then i might be wrong about the usyd statistics major and how it "jumps right into statistics' and how majority of it is statistics subject.

A good chunk of the UNSW statistics major is just all these math subjects which i think have nothing to do with stats. Maybe im just being ignorant, and things like linear algebra and linear models are actually necessary to study to learn statistics. Most of this dilemma stems from the fact that I am annoyed and not patient enough in having to do things like "several variable calculus', or 'linear algebra', just to do the actual statistics math subjects.

 

[sida1049]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the way I see USYD statistics major is that, first year I'll do fundamental core math subjects (just like every other math major), and then il jump right into statistics 2nd year, and the rest of the major will be statistics stuff. - which is what I want, I want more to spend more time and effort learning what my major is about. However with UNSW, I see it as - first TWO years you are doing random math subjects until the 3rd stage where you actually do statistics subjects. But since you are saying both majors at these unis is 'mainstream', im assuming then i might be wrong about the usyd statistics major and how it "jumps right into statistics' and how majority of it is statistics subject.

A good chunk of the UNSW statistics major is just all these math subjects which i think have nothing to do with stats. Maybe im just being ignorant, and things like linear algebra and linear models are actually necessary to study to learn statistics. Most of this dilemma stems from the fact that I am annoyed and not patient enough in having to do things like "several variable calculus', or 'linear algebra', just to do the actual statistics math subjects.

When I talk about "mainstream" units, I mean as in non-advanced units.

It's true that USYD doesn't require you to take any maths units outside of first year to satisfy a statistics major. But UNSW has linear algebra and multivariable (vector) calculus for a good reason: because they are relevant. If you're majoring in mathematical statistics, you need to be able to use the mathematical machinery behind the statistical methods.

Furthermore, linear models is literally a statistics course. Linear models is also know as linear regression, which is when you're fitting a linear function through data points. Regression is an important area of statistics, and linear regression requires linear algebra, which is a very important area of mathematics.

Even though USYD doesn't enforce statistics students to take linear algebra and vector calculus, I think you should anyway. I took STAT2911 Probability and Statistical Models last year, and some topics involved using multiple integrals and linear transformations. There were some students who weren't taking second year maths courses at the time, so they were disadvantaged in some way (and even then, STAT2911 is hardest course I've ever taken... so far). Knowing your linear algebra becomes especially important for linear models and applied statistics. If you're considering doing an honours year in mathematical statistics at USYD, the honours units MSH2 Probability Theory and MSH4 Intro to Stochastic Calculus strongly recommend to take the third year advanced pure maths unit MATH3969 Measure Theory.

So while USYD gives you the choice to graduate with a statistics major with only first year maths, you're not doing yourself a service by avoiding maths units that are relevant to your statistics major.

 

[jjHasm]

I have a much more clear understanding now
Excuse my ignorance, and thank you for the detailed response, it really helped
Now I think it will boil down to whether I want to do an honours year or not, which I will think of in the years to come
again, cheers sida1049