BESS Thread

Time Magazine · 06-03-2009 2:31am

In Commerce you're somewhat stuck with the business route. In BESS, if it's not your thing, you can go with Political Science/other.

People change their minds. During the LC I was sure I wanted to do Economics by itself. At the end of my first year in BESS, I couldn't stand how mathsy it was and was close to picking single-honours Business. Then in second year, I could not stand either Marketing or Accounting. Despised it with the fury of a kid being force-fed Irish through the means of the projector. In third year I swapped to single-honours Economics and never looked back.

That sort of flexibility doesn't exist in Commerce as far as I know.

manicmonoliths · 06-03-2009 11:28am

Think I've had somewhat of a similar experience to The Economist. I choose BESS wanting to do Business but now have changed mindset entirely and planning on doing Economics. Actually I think for a wild moment in 1st year I was considering doing Sociology...*shudder*

andrew · 06-03-2009 1:07pm

JohnnyDoogue wrote: »

Don't you think this macro is way harder in general that Francis stuff. The concepts are easy but they way its expalained seems around the bush. Is'nt market clearing simply a fancied up version of a market at equilibrium. At least the exam is 1/3 true or false.Though I regret not going to those tutorial!

Woah, I had to look up the term market clearing there for a sec. I can see what you mean, they tend to state the obvious a lot. There'll be a paragraph in the book where they explain something so obvious that you second guess your understanding of it because you can't see why they'd explain something so obvious. but last years exam looked pretty easy, should be ok. Hopefully stats goes ok tho...

House of Wolves · 06-03-2009 1:18pm

The one problem with BESS is that if you dont like the subject you still have to do it for the entire year before you can drop. Doing sociology last year was pretty annoying, and it made little sense for me to do. Then again at least I know for sure that the subjects I am choosing are the right choices.
Dont know what exactly my point was there, kinda turned it around on myself.....

d93c2inhxfok4y · 07-03-2009 2:09pm

andrew wrote: »

Woah, I had to look up the term market clearing there for a sec. I can see what you mean, they tend to state the obvious a lot. There'll be a paragraph in the book where they explain something so obvious that you second guess your understanding of it because you can't see why they'd explain something so obvious. but last years exam looked pretty easy, should be ok. Hopefully stats goes ok tho...

Andrew... Lynn?
Sup dude.

JohnnyDoogue · 07-03-2009 5:10pm

andrew wrote: »

Woah, I had to look up the term market clearing there for a sec. I can see what you mean, they tend to state the obvious a lot. There'll be a paragraph in the book where they explain something so obvious that you second guess your understanding of it because you can't see why they'd explain something so obvious. but last years exam looked pretty easy, should be ok. Hopefully stats goes ok tho...

You mean maths right? I couldnt do tutorial 3 at all any advice?

xOxSinéadxOx · 07-03-2009 11:16pm

and do you have to sociology and stuff like that? can you drop it after 1st year?

House of Wolves · 07-03-2009 11:58pm

hey yea you have to do maths & stats, economics, orginsation & management. politics and sociology. you then have the choice of doing french or law (or a different language). these are your first year subject. To be honest if you feel like you really just want to business then maybe a commerce course would be better, but you have a degree of uncertainity then the course is good. also you can drop politics and sociology in your second year.

here is a link to find out everything you want to know
http://www.tcd.ie/bess/downloads/FullBooklet2008.091.pdf

the course is very flexible and you can a number of joint degrees
e.g sociology and economics, or business and politcs etc, or do a single honours

zuchum · 07-03-2009 11:59pm

xOxSinéadxOx wrote: »

and do you have to sociology and stuff like that? can you drop it after 1st year?

After first year, you have a choice of courses to choose from. Basically you concentrate your studies on whichever topics most interest you/you want to do.

You can drop sociology if you want to; from my experience, quite a lot of people do this, so all should be good

House of Wolves · 08-03-2009 12:09am

zuchum wrote: »

After first year, you have a choice of courses to choose from. Basically you concentrate your studies on whichever topics most interest you/you want to do.

You can drop sociology if you want to; from my experience, quite a lot of people do this, so all should be good

A bit more to the point! :P

andrew · 08-03-2009 6:05pm

Eva Petite Rank wrote: »

Andrew... Lynn?
Sup dude.

Nailer! Whatsup! heh, can't believe i never noticed that before.

d93c2inhxfok4y · 08-03-2009 7:47pm

andrew wrote: »

Nailer! Whatsup! heh, can't believe i never noticed that before.

Ha, Nailer hasnt really carried from secondary school life into trinity, im mainly Conor there, so it's understandable!
Cant say I found you through my own investigation either, I have Walsho to thank! Wonder how many other first years are on here.

The Walsho · 08-03-2009 8:02pm

Eva Petite Rank wrote: »

Ha, Nailer hasnt really carried from secondary school life into trinity, im mainly Conor there, so it's understandable!
Cant say I found you through my own investigation either, I have Walsho to thank! Wonder how many other first years are on here.

:cool:
<|>
/\

d93c2inhxfok4y · 08-03-2009 8:03pm

The Walsho wrote: »

:cool:

<|>

/\

Don't you start! :rolleyes:

xOxSinéadxOx · 12-03-2009 11:02pm

thanks for the info guys! much appreciated

sully-gormo · 14-03-2009 7:18pm

Does anyone here do quants in 4th yr? Looking at courses for next year and im defo going to have to do it if im to go on for an MSc, though I hear its rock hard. Also cant decide between World Economy, Law/competition and development; what are people's experiences with these?

scruttocks · 14-03-2009 8:31pm

I find that mathematical courses like quants can get a bad rep from people who aren't necessarily very mathematically minded but aren't so bad if you have the maths skillz, I'd bear that in mind

conor052001 · 14-03-2009 10:05pm

sully-gormo wrote: »

Does anyone here do quants in 4th yr? Looking at courses for next year and im defo going to have to do it if im to go on for an MSc, though I hear its rock hard. Also cant decide between World Economy, Law/competition and development; what are people's experiences with these?

friend of mine does it who would be very good at economics and always did well but finds quants very difficult

Running Bing · 14-03-2009 11:09pm

sully-gormo wrote: »

Does anyone here do quants in 4th yr? Looking at courses for next year and im defo going to have to do it if im to go on for an MSc, though I hear its rock hard. Also cant decide between World Economy, Law/competition and development; what are people's experiences with these?

Did you do Math Econ in JS?

AFAIK 4th year Quants is a continuation of 3rd year econometrics and Math econ so if you find those subjects ok and are generally comfortable with maths it should be doable.

Its definitely one of the more challenging courses. Even people who are good at maths find it tough but it is doable if your good at maths, work hard and want to do well.

I did world economy in 4th year. We did not have Kevin O'Rourke though. We had a grad student who was teaching a course for the first time and to be fair she was'nt the best. I imagine the course is much more rewarding with Kevin O'Rourke (hes a very smart fella...Harvard Phd and is one of the foremost economic historians in the world) as most of the reading list is his own stuff.

Very interesting course though and more relevent than ever now with the global problems and silent threat of the dreaded "P" word (protectionism). Cant say I found the course exhilarating all the time but looking back now Im very glad I did it.

EGaffney · 15-03-2009 1:43am

Only do Quants if you are:
a) taking a two subject moderatorship with mathematics, or
b) are very good at and interested in maths in 3rd year.

It's very rigorous. If you have a strong grasp of your mathematics course, it's really not difficult. But I can see why those without such a strong ability in maths would find it hard.

colquhom · 15-03-2009 7:32pm

EGaffney wrote: »

Only do Quants if you are:
a) taking a two subject moderatorship with mathematics, or
b) are very good at and interested in maths in 3rd year.

It's very rigorous. If you have a strong grasp of your mathematics course, it's really not difficult. But I can see why those without such a strong ability in maths would find it hard.

meh, i don't think you need that strong of a grasp of mathematics, granted I do Maths/Economics TSM but if you're even thinking about doing it you probably have the requisite stuff required. The first half of the course is a lot of ordinary differential equations and difference equations and the way Somerville teaches it he makes it pretty doable IMO, far easier than it was taught to me on the Maths side anyway. There's some other harder stuff in the first half but it looks like you can avoid that entirely in the exam, the second half is Econometrics, if you did econometrics and found the theory fine I presume you'll be grand, it doesn't require a lot of proper Mathematics from what I can see, its more understanding the concepts and what they're actually trying to find out i.e what is a stationary series etc.... Basically, i think if you think you're reasonable at Maths go ahead, if you "hate" Maths steer clear.

shay_562 · 15-03-2009 10:37pm

Re: Quants, I was really struggling with it (through a mixture of not putting enough effort in, hating Somerville's method of teaching and not having particularly good maths skills anyway) so I dropped it for, conveniently enough, World Economy. Since then, I've heard mixed things from people still in it, ranging from "Man, you shouldn't have left, it gets so easy by Christmas and the exam paper looks simple!" to "I wish I'd left too, it's going to **** up my degree".

What's come above basically covers it - you'd want to have a relatively good grounding in maths, as it gets pretty theoretical. You'd want to be doing Mathematical Economics and Econometrics (though if memory serves, they're requirements anyway) and performing quite well in them, and you need to be willing to put a decent amount of work in throughout the year.

Re: World Economy, I find it quite interesting. It's largely a history course, which is strange, as it's my first time writing proper essays in quite a while (that said, the only continuous assessment aspect of the course is the research paper of roughly 6,000 words submitted at the end of Hilary Term). There's a fair amount of reading to be done in it, and O'Rourke is quite intimidating to deal with, especially since he seems to know loads about *everything*, but it's probably my most interesting and enjoyable course this year.

EGaffney · 16-03-2009 1:38am

The range of reactions that people have to Quants is the reason why I'd advise great caution in choosing it. Having said that, I'm on a Masters course in Economics now, and QM has proven its worth consistently throughout.

colquhom · 16-03-2009 2:02am

EGaffney wrote: »

The range of reactions that people have to Quants is the reason why I'd advise great caution in choosing it. Having said that, I'm on a Masters course in Economics now, and QM has proven its worth consistently throughout.

if u don't mind me asking, where are you doing your masters? Is it interesting? I was all set to do a masters in economics but I seem to be developing a growing hatred of the subject and its inability to actually solve any problems it tries to attack. What are ur experiences post-grad wise?

Running Bing · 16-03-2009 10:10am

EGaffney wrote: »

The range of reactions that people have to Quants is the reason why I'd advise great caution in choosing it.

I think if you have any doubt about doing its a good sign that maybe you should'nt.

That sounds a little harsh but it is the short of thing that can really ruin a degree.

I suppose the real question is how crucial is it to the masters course? I would've liked to do a masters in economics but I was a little put off by everybody saying "oh you have to do quants to do a masters".

I did math econ in JS and it was'nt for me so that put an end to that. I know the TCD Masters is apparently very heavy quant-wise....are all good economics masters like that?

EGaffney · 16-03-2009 3:49pm

I'm doing the MSc course here. It's grand really, though it you want to study at PhD level at a very top university it helps if you get a Masters placement there.

If you're the kind of person who thinks theoretical economics is pointless, though (e.g. "... inability to actually solve any problems..."), you shouldn't do a masters course in it, because it's very mathematical and not policy-oriented. There are economic policy postgraduate courses you can do instead.

Economics is a mathematical social science and every good postgraduate course reflects that. Quants isn't technically a prerequisite, but it helps a lot, and the mathematics is at around the same level. To sum up, if you're not up to speed with maths up to at least JS BESS, then don't do a masters in economics.

bhoy4life · 28-03-2009 12:50am

Im doing BESS next year (if i get the points!) and i want to know what level of knowledge you need in business and economics? i'm really interested in it but i don't do either subject in school. Would i need to do a bit of work before i go into the course?

andrew · 28-03-2009 1:30am

bhoy4life wrote: »

Im doing BESS next year (if i get the points!) and i want to know what level of knowledge you need in business and economics? i'm really interested in it but i don't do either subject in school. Would i need to do a bit of work before i go into the course?

I did neither subject in school and it's fine. There is no overlap between the business you do in school, and the business you do in BESS. As far as i know, there is some overlap in terms of the economics you do, and having economics would help. That said, I didn't do economics for the leaving and it's fine.

Basically, not having done business or economics doesn't matter.

d93c2inhxfok4y · 28-03-2009 2:42pm

Andrew basically has it there. I did business for the leaving but I dont really see any correlation whatsoever between that subject and the business part of BESS,they're basically unrelated.

I would like to have done economics though, even if it would only be a small benefit. It's definitely not a nescessity, you can do fine without it, but it may require maybe a tiny bit more work just to get the basics of it, but then it's grand. It's called "Introduction to Economics" as far as I remember, so that should say a lot, it basically goes over much of the basics learned for the leaving.

Yeah you should be fine for business and economics, if you havent done them for the leaving.

Sociology though, phwoar, you need to really get reading for that or it'll consume you, it's an absolute bitch

Randomness · 28-03-2009 8:43pm

I'm in SF and you don't need to have done Business at all to do BESS, I hadn't done it and like people said above it's actually not like the Leaving Cert stuff at all.

It wouldn't do you any harm to look over an Intro to Economics book though, it would just make your life a bit easier in first year and then if your were to continue Economics later on you would be better placed.

Business goes into Accouting in second year and people who haven't done that before have been finding it a bit hard but at the same time people who put some work in are doing grand.

You sound interested though so I'm sure you'll be fine and as I said a little background info for Economics wouldn't to any harm at all!

Hope you get BESS, it's great!

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