What's your advice (1 Viewer)

[cmifsud]

Hi I'm currently studying a Bachelor or Economics at UNE majoring in Economics and Econometrics (2nd year) and can't decide whether to just do the degree or do honours as well. My problem is that a lot of the banks intern programmes need you to be in your penultimate year of study. I really want to get an internship (with a bank, say National, Commonwealth, ANZ etc got rejected by Mac bank and ABN amro) so I have something useful to do these Christmas holidays and can get into my career. But do you think having honours is better in the long run, despite it taking an extra year.

 

[leoyh]

work experience is always better than flash degree in my opinion.

 

[jynxe]

I'm not sure about the Retail/Institutional banks, but for Investment Banking, they're generally looking for honours or double-degree students. Yes, work-experience is important, but if you don't have the benchmark grades, you're not going to even get a first-round interview, unless you have absolutely stellar and varied work-experience. That's from my experience.

Besides, you can still apply for internships this year because you are technically penultimate. Whether or not you decide to do a honours year (and the applications are usually due end of November for honours, aren't they?) shouldn't affect that. If you do decide to do honours, you can just do another internship next year. Then you'll have more experience, and a 'better' degree.

 

[Affinity]

work experience is always better than flash degree in my opinion.

up to a point.

 

[leoyh]

by what i said before, what i really mean is that having work experience + a normal degree would be more desirable to an employer than a really fancy degree. so for example, a simple B.Comm but with some solid experience in a finance or accounting company is much more desirable than a Comm/law degree but with no work experience.

 

[ifsonotso_100]

by what i said before, what i really mean is that having work experience + a normal degree would be more desirable to an employer than a really fancy degree. so for example, a simple B.Comm but with some solid experience in a finance or accounting company is much more desirable than a Comm/law degree but with no work experience.

how likely is it for a person who has been at uni doing a 5 yr degree to not have w experience/good extra curriculars- extremely extremely unlikely. hence what you are saying would be close to an absolute rarity and is rather redundant.

 

[Affinity]

by what i said before, what i really mean is that having work experience + a normal degree would be more desirable to an employer than a really fancy degree. so for example, a simple B.Comm but with some solid experience in a finance or accounting company is much more desirable than a Comm/law degree but with no work experience.

That's a myopic view.

In the long run, everyone will have work experience.. after at age 25 say, a person who did honours will have 3 years of experience and a person who did not will have 4.. There isn't that much of a difference between that.

And despite what people might tell you, employers do recognise the value of formal education.