Math123, STAT170, ECON111 & ACST101 (1 Viewer)

[aspirational]

Hey guys,

I will be doing a bachelor of commerce this year and I was wondering if I could grab some insight on the stated units. I haven't touched any maths in about 2 years and i only did general maths during years 11 & 12. I struggled in general maths but largely due to my own habits. Fast forward to now I did some study and soul searching and after getting set into good habits I made it into macq. My biggest issue is the level of mathematics needed for these units. Do you think maths123 does a good job of setting a student up like me with the knowledge needed? Do you think if I study very hard (very very hard) I will be able to do okay in them?

My biggest fear is wasting my time and failing so I'm contemplating dropping out if the maths is too hard for someone with a very bad mathematical ability. I am willing to apply myself 100% but I fear the lack of very basic mathematical principles may be my downfall.

This semester I will be taking ACC106, AHMG101 (people) BUS201 & BBA102. The next I will be doing MATH123, ECON1111, STAT170 & BUS202. I got a exemption in MKGT101 which has given me the ability to do ACST101 semester 1 2014.

Thanks!

 

[Chopper_261087]

Hi aspirational congrats on getting in!

I can only comment on ECON, STAT and ACST unfortunately, but hopefully it helps

ECON: Not particularly formula heavy when I did it but there was a lot of explaining things with graphs. These graphs hardly ever go beyond "y=mx+b" but my challenge was knowing the theory behind it. Once I knew what all the graphs and lines meant it was quite an easy subject.

STAT: I hated. My advice would be to study the hell out of it because it gets quite heavy after week 3. The good thing about it was we got cheat sheets for the final exam. For the most part it's just a matter of matching the characteristics of the question with the right formula, but even then Linear Regression was quite a happy thing to see behind me. I also got a horrible tutor for this one, so I hope your luck is different

ACST: Reminded me more of your typical Maths class really. You are given maybe 10-15 formulas overall to remember, but they're not psychotic. I remembered learning a few of the formulas during my Year 11 Advanced Maths Class

Overall there was a lot of study involved, particularly in STAT and ECON, but these are the basic principles of Business and Finance, and really they are designed so you should be able to pass them. And if you have any troubles there's plenty of support there for you

 

[ChrisAC]

Hey there,

i was in a similar position to you when i started my degree. I went to work for 5 years after high school and then went back to uni. In high school i did 2 unit maths but only got like 57 in the HSC or something so pretty bad indeed (i didnt try at all in maths)

Ive done most of the subjects you are enquiring about and i had the very same concerns you had when i started my degree. First of all, you need to understand that there are quite a few people in the same boat as us and therefore in first year they teach from a very basic level from the first few lectures, you just need to keep up (which means probably study a bit more than those coming fresh from school).

We were told from the start to do Math123 to mostly to help with ACST101 - its good advice however i found i didnt need it in the end. They advise that you need Math123 to do the second level of finance (AFIN252/AFIN253) im doing AFIN253 this semester without having done Math123 so fingers crossed for me.

ECON111 - My second worst subject to date (ive completed 12) - you really need to grasp the concepts and i had a hard time because i hadnt done graphs in a long time. Being confident with graphs and equations really help you with this subject, i still managed to gain a credit even though the night before the final i still didnt really understand most of the last 4 lectures. Subject is interesting though but thank god im not doing economics

STAT170 - Subject is really easy the first 7 weeks then it goes into WTF mode and its hard to keep up. In the end though, you get cheat sheets and basically a good cheat sheet alone can get you an easy pass with a basic grasping of the concepts. I managed a Distinction in this subject and up until near the final i was kind of clueless - but once you get into writing your cheat sheet everything comes together and the final is pretty easy in the end. Had to learn from scratch with this subject - didnt understand what standard deviation was or anything prior to it. Theres alot of online testing with this subject - DO THEM ALL and dont cheat! they really help you keep up.

ACST101 - i went into my degree DREADING this subject, 3 out of 4 people i know that have done it had failed it and it has a rep for having a high fail rate. In the first tutorial, there was a sheet handed out "these are the skills required for ACST101". it was lots of different "basic" maths questions and the whole class had their heads down smashing them out and i was sitting there clueless literally thinking to myself "wtf am i doing here" and "ffs im going to have to go study my yr 12 maths book". Luckily i was doing the subject with a mate who helped me with the basics and then in the next tut found out that it actually starts off quite slow and they dont assume as much knowledge as was displayed on the "skills required for ACST101" test. So, basically took it tute by tute, doing all the homework, and basically if you can do the homework without looking at the answers you can do the final. So basically to study for the final, i just did the homework again. Managed an 83 in this subject and beat the guy who was helping me in the beginning with the maths.

As far as first year goes, you can pretty much go into it with very little maths knowledge as long as youre willing to do all the homework and keep up.

 

[aspirational]

Hi aspirational congrats on getting in!

I can only comment on ECON, STAT and ACST unfortunately, but hopefully it helps

ECON: Not particularly formula heavy when I did it but there was a lot of explaining things with graphs. These graphs hardly ever go beyond "y=mx+b" but my challenge was knowing the theory behind it. Once I knew what all the graphs and lines meant it was quite an easy subject.

STAT: I hated. My advice would be to study the hell out of it because it gets quite heavy after week 3. The good thing about it was we got cheat sheets for the final exam. For the most part it's just a matter of matching the characteristics of the question with the right formula, but even then Linear Regression was quite a happy thing to see behind me. I also got a horrible tutor for this one, so I hope your luck is different

ACST: Reminded me more of your typical Maths class really. You are given maybe 10-15 formulas overall to remember, but they're not psychotic. I remembered learning a few of the formulas during my Year 11 Advanced Maths Class

Overall there was a lot of study involved, particularly in STAT and ECON, but these are the basic principles of Business and Finance, and really they are designed so you should be able to pass them. And if you have any troubles there's plenty of support there for you

Hey there,

i was in a similar position to you when i started my degree. I went to work for 5 years after high school and then went back to uni. In high school i did 2 unit maths but only got like 57 in the HSC or something so pretty bad indeed (i didnt try at all in maths)

Ive done most of the subjects you are enquiring about and i had the very same concerns you had when i started my degree. First of all, you need to understand that there are quite a few people in the same boat as us and therefore in first year they teach from a very basic level from the first few lectures, you just need to keep up (which means probably study a bit more than those coming fresh from school).

We were told from the start to do Math123 to mostly to help with ACST101 - its good advice however i found i didnt need it in the end. They advise that you need Math123 to do the second level of finance (AFIN252/AFIN253) im doing AFIN253 this semester without having done Math123 so fingers crossed for me.

ECON111 - My second worst subject to date (ive completed 12) - you really need to grasp the concepts and i had a hard time because i hadnt done graphs in a long time. Being confident with graphs and equations really help you with this subject, i still managed to gain a credit even though the night before the final i still didnt really understand most of the last 4 lectures. Subject is interesting though but thank god im not doing economics

STAT170 - Subject is really easy the first 7 weeks then it goes into WTF mode and its hard to keep up. In the end though, you get cheat sheets and basically a good cheat sheet alone can get you an easy pass with a basic grasping of the concepts. I managed a Distinction in this subject and up until near the final i was kind of clueless - but once you get into writing your cheat sheet everything comes together and the final is pretty easy in the end. Had to learn from scratch with this subject - didnt understand what standard deviation was or anything prior to it. Theres alot of online testing with this subject - DO THEM ALL and dont cheat! they really help you keep up.

ACST101 - i went into my degree DREADING this subject, 3 out of 4 people i know that have done it had failed it and it has a rep for having a high fail rate. In the first tutorial, there was a sheet handed out "these are the skills required for ACST101". it was lots of different "basic" maths questions and the whole class had their heads down smashing them out and i was sitting there clueless literally thinking to myself "wtf am i doing here" and "ffs im going to have to go study my yr 12 maths book". Luckily i was doing the subject with a mate who helped me with the basics and then in the next tut found out that it actually starts off quite slow and they dont assume as much knowledge as was displayed on the "skills required for ACST101" test. So, basically took it tute by tute, doing all the homework, and basically if you can do the homework without looking at the answers you can do the final. So basically to study for the final, i just did the homework again. Managed an 83 in this subject and beat the guy who was helping me in the beginning with the maths.

As far as first year goes, you can pretty much go into it with very little maths knowledge as long as youre willing to do all the homework and keep up.

Thank you guys so much. Your insight has really lifted my spirits. I am looking to apply myself 100% and truly study my heart out. I was just a little bit iffy in relation to whether or not they expected us to obtain a certain level of mathematical knowledge. But considering they start off slow and in combination to utilization of the numeracy center hopefully I will be able to at east pass each subject. I just came out of an Advanced Diploma in Marketing and got a GPA of 4.7/5 so im pretty determined to do well this year!

 

[lp2006]

I'm doing MATH130 this semester and it looks like MATH123 is a very similar class. I've already checked out the readings for the semester and it is very formal and example-based. If you go through the readings before your lectures and do the problem sets in the readings and the tutorial questions, it looks like a D/HD should not be too hard to attain. If you get stuck with any questions feel free to send me a private message, if I have already done that topic I'd be happy to try and help. Maths is all about doing as many examples as you possibly can.

The course outlines are very similar to the 2U/3U syllabuses, with some formal definitions and notations added where appropriate. Actually looking forward to this class, at least more than my core commerce classes.

EDIT: I think you'll find ACST101 to be a walk in the park if you study hard in MATH123 and absorb it all. Finance can be confusing if your math fundamentals aren't up to scratch, and most unis go out of their way to make the intro finance class challenging to force you to brush up on your quantitative skills (especially for people who don't end up taking a math class in first year and only have stats as their quantitative background). Even if you don't consider yourself necessarily good at maths, it's a good skill to have and a D or HD on your transcript in a first year math class is never a bad thing. Just do lots of practice questions, and if you get stuck on any question you have many avenues for guidance: facebook math pages, BoS, lecturers, tutors, learning centre, khan academy (some topics), youtube-- just make sure you don't leave any questions unsolved purely because you didn't try hard enough.