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§eraphim

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What are the finance courses "Portfolio Management" and "Research Methods in Finance like? It says in the FCE Handbook that a CR is required? Are they super hard?
 

Minai

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I have friends doing FINS2624 (portfolio mgmt)..they havent really bitched about it so I assume it isnt that hard.

To clarify, you need a CR in FINS2624 to do FINS3775 Research Methods in Finance (its a prerequisite)
 

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i think wen ur in uni and u feel ur smart, doing the harder courses will be more benificial for u, thats the main appealing thing about actuary, and even now that many are conquering it, the challenge has been risen to law/commerce(actuary) - IMO you should find out the hard ones and go for them, rather then find them out and avoid them :p

u wanna do finance, ull be competing with finance/law - which is already MILES ahead, then actuary/finance and ofcourse actuary/law.... so doing accounting finance alone is going to leave much to be desired...
 

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§eraphim said:
What are the finance courses "Portfolio Management" and "Research Methods in Finance like? It says in the FCE Handbook that a CR is required? Are they super hard?
Portfolio Mgmt isn't hard, there's some Excel work so some VBA programming would be handy (but hardly needed). RMF is just reading literature and doing basic stats work. You do RMF if you plan to do Honours or postgrad, but if you're up to it, it's not that hard either.

And CR means Credit. If a dumbo like me can do them, you can too.
 

Minai

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aditya said:
i think wen ur in uni and u feel ur smart, doing the harder courses will be more benificial for u, thats the main appealing thing about actuary, and even now that many are conquering it, the challenge has been risen to law/commerce(actuary) - IMO you should find out the hard ones and go for them, rather then find them out and avoid them :p

u wanna do finance, ull be competing with finance/law - which is already MILES ahead, then actuary/finance and ofcourse actuary/law.... so doing accounting finance alone is going to leave much to be desired...
going for graduate jobs in finance, its mostly level playing field whatever degree you get, there's no real difference or advantage if you have an LLB or Actuarial studies tagged on - sure the employer may percieve you to be smarter, but you'll have to prove it to them
 

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aditya said:
i think wen ur in uni and u feel ur smart, doing the harder courses will be more benificial for u, thats the main appealing thing about actuary, and even now that many are conquering it, the challenge has been risen to law/commerce(actuary) - IMO you should find out the hard ones and go for them, rather then find them out and avoid them :p

u wanna do finance, ull be competing with finance/law - which is already MILES ahead, then actuary/finance and ofcourse actuary/law.... so doing accounting finance alone is going to leave much to be desired...
lol i don't think you can comment on actuarial studies unless you've done it
it isn't easy and many aren't conquering it
 

§eraphim

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redslert said:
lol i don't think you can comment on actuarial studies unless you've done it
it isn't easy and many aren't conquering it
i concur...u dont know how hard things are till u attempt it
 

Affinity

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It shouldn't be much different from other subjects.. it's just the reputation of the subject that stump the grades
 

maniacguy

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It's true that you don't know how hard a subject is until you've tried it.

I believe that actuarial subjects are overrated for difficulty though - I've gone through a lot more pain and suffering for my maths subjects than my actuarial ones this semester (and suspect I did worse in the former!), and Affinity can attest to the fact that I'm fairly good at maths :)

(And my overall average in actuarial subjects is higher than my overall average in maths subjects too!)
 

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By fairly good at maths, he means he's a 3rd year student taking 2nd year actuarial tutorials!
 

aditya

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wtf... i was saying that actuary is hard and yet many MORE are doing it to say 5 years ago.... hence the increase in competition... and what u said minai about the level playing field........ that is some weird stuff... because ur not level at all... mergers and aquisitions - finance/law BIG ADV.... actuarial... mad quant skills... i dno maybe my perception of finance is incorect or narrow - but basicalli finaince for me is the IB jobs... not the portfolio management things... more quantative skills are found in actuary than in accounting finance....

You said you have to prove to them how smart u are... thats exactly wat im saying... that u should do the harder subjects to prove to them that u are a cappable human being... despite not having the more difficult degree...

and again... for the record... by no means was i saying that actuarial studies was easy....
 

Affinity

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Actuarial science is quite narrow, it's mainly concerned with insurance. I seem to get an impression that it's being regarded some kind of omnipotent skill.
 

§eraphim

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Affinity said:
Actuarial science is quite narrow, it's mainly concerned with insurance. I seem to get an impression that it's being regarded some kind of omnipotent skill.
gaining actuarial exemptions is more a test of potential rather than performance
 

maniacguy

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§eraphim said:
gaining actuarial exemptions is more a test of potential rather than performance
I'm going away for a few days, so I can stir up an argument on the way.
Replace "test of potential" with "formality" and "performance" with "a challenge" to get a better sentence :)
 

Affinity

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ROFLMAO
by the way what's with this 10 character minimum limit
 

§eraphim

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Affinity said:
ROFLMAO
by the way what's with this 10 character minimum limit
yeah wtf? i thought brevity was the highest form of wit (according to Shakespare)....
 

§eraphim

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maniacguy said:
I'm going away for a few days, so I can stir up an argument on the way.
Replace "test of potential" with "formality" and "performance" with "a challenge" to get a better sentence :)
hey shush! just cz ur cruising and getting HDs! :p
 

maniacguy

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Hmm... I was expecting more responses to a deliberately inflammatory remark.

It's no fun if nobody's going to reply, so in the interests of not confusing Year 12 students who will show up to try and find out stuff, I'll clarify that it's not a formality, but it's not the hardest thing in the world. I would rate Accounting 2B, for instance, as much harder than actuarial (though it was pretty interesting stuff).

I'll also point out that in general (there are exceptions), harder stuff = interesting stuff, so you should consider the ill-effects of boredom when looking for easy subjects.
 

maniacguy

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Affinity said:
Actuarial science is quite narrow, it's mainly concerned with insurance. I seem to get an impression that it's being regarded some kind of omnipotent skill.
As an actuarial student, you should be promoting its value :)
Besides, a lot of the stuff we learn is useful in a number of industries, not limited to insurance (see the President's Address from the new President of the IAAust for examples)
 

Affinity

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maniacguy said:
As an actuarial student, you should be promoting its value :)
Besides, a lot of the stuff we learn is useful in a number of industries, not limited to insurance (see the President's Address from the new President of the IAAust for examples)
I am only spreading sacchi's message
And, from memory, Helen martin said something along the lines - we're trying to promote the idea that actuaries are business problem solvers.
 
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