Drop out rate? (1 Viewer)

[Raginsheep]

Hey, Im thinking of doing actuarial studies next year and was wondering what the drop out rate for actuarial studies was.

 

[Olsen]

If your good at Maths (esp Maths Ext 2), are motivated and have a genuine love for the course and its contents the failure rate shouldn't matter.

 

[Raginsheep]

NO but my mum harks on about the "70% drop out rate" for actuarial...

 

[Raginsheep]

Is that 1st year or at the end of the degree?

Also whats it like at UNSW?

 

[Constip8edSkunk]

yes theres always unsw but its pretty high here i think... well in my year 163 people was enrolled at the 1st week of 2nd session last year, right now there are 111 people enrolled, (Week 2, 2nd yr, 2nd session) but its not because people fail, its just people voluntarily changing their majors when they realise they'd rather take a different career path

 

[RIZAL]

If your good at Maths (esp Maths Ext 2), are motivated and have a genuine love for the course and its contents the failure rate shouldn't matter.

good call.

it's not that bad at all if you like the content.

 

[flamin']

yea.. it kinda sux when you've got other unis offer a diluted ACST degree with Macq here being hard as balls... i mean, UNSW graduates are gonna come out with the same degree as Macq but have half the fight.

i've talked to some UNSW guys and their Part II exemption subject (ACST400 at Macq) is really weak and easy and it doesn't follow the IAAust course well, whereas our one follows the (harder) IAAust course....

Having said that, UNSW have done better to rope more people in because of their Co-ops.... Macq sucks at getting the industry involved...

 

[Raginsheep]

Explain? I don't get it

 

[flamin']

Ya... whats so funny?

 

[CrashOveride]

Yeah all this talk about MQ superiority...is just to compensate the mq actuaries coz they goto a crappy campus =p

 

[:: ck ::]

lol only thing i like abt the campus is the lake...

haha i agree with crashoveride to an extent .. but yeh it is better over here at mq=P

 

[Mini]

mac has a nice campus - i love the grass too and we have mac centre 5 mins away for shopping and foooood.

i'd say the 'drop out rate' is overrated. i was terrified of that myself, but i find its mainly people that have stuffed up somewhere along the way and have to hang back a year and repeat. they're not leaving the course, they're just a year behind.

actuarial isn't all as horrendous as its cracked up to be - especially if u study, which i really don't, lol. there are some tedious things, but hey, thats the case for everything.

summary: go mac, we rule all

 

[CrashOveride]

It's not as hard as everyone makes it out to be, provided you study regularly etc.

Raginsheep, a pretty worthy point for consideration is that most 1st year actuaries, or so i think anyway, go through a stage where they question "is this for me" because it's been mine (and some others i know) experience that once you start doing it, it's not what you thought it would be. From this perspective, UNSW is good coz u have good things to switch to easily if u wanna change. The guy who came 1st in 3u math last year got a co op actuary place and he ended up voluntarily ejecting himself from his position in the program in order to take up a double degree (still doing acst tho) - he told me he considered the work/maths involved a bit bland and wanted to expand his horizons.

Food for thought.

 

[Raginsheep]

I realise that you need to put in *some* work to do well at acutarial.

My question is more or less for my parents. They'd rather I not do actuarial due to the +60% drop out rate they hear from their friends whose children apparently do actuarial.

 

[CrashOveride]

It's not that high.

And as i said, and as you said, as long as you do work you should be fine.

it's your decision, shouldn't be your rents' decision.

 

[Raginsheep]

I know.....they don't believe you guys anyway....

Anywhere I can get official stats?

 

[:: ck ::]

who gives a shit about hte drop out rate

if u wanna do it, ull do it no matter what, because u find it interesting

unless ur one of those ppl who are like "mmm i wouldnt mind making big bucks in the future, might as well go for it! if not ill jus go for law/med"

 

[flamin']

... or dentistry - they get paid heaps

 

[CrashOveride]

who gives a shit about hte drop out rate

if u wanna do it, ull do it no matter what, because u find it interesting

unless ur one of those ppl who are like "mmm i wouldnt mind making big bucks in the future, might as well go for it! if not ill jus go for law/med"

Or if you didnt like law or med, you just went "i want the big bucks, i heard there's math, ill do actuarial***"

***true story =p

 

[ks21]

Im first yr actuarial student at UNSW. I think we started with 200, and prob down to 130 ish now. Many ppl drop out because they cant stand it, the failure rate wouldnt be too high.

The reason why drop out rate is lower at MQ, because the have a higher UAI cutoff, this yr it was 95 for UNSW and 98 for MQ. Generally the people that goto MQ are pretty serious about doing actuarial studies, while at UNSW, lot of ppl just wanna try it out, if u get what i mean. lol, i mean apart from actuarial studies what else is MQ good at.

If your unsure I say come to UNSW, better secondary options, and if your pretty keen about actuarial and hardworking go to MQ.