BESS Thread

Randomness

Eva Petite Rank wrote: »

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

I think I was thinking the same thing last year till they kinda broke the course down and gave a rough idea of what might come up or I think they gave us like 6-8 topics to study and we had to do 4 questions or something. Anyway over the next few weeks lecturers will start hinting/saying/guiding as to what to study etc. Well some will anyway if I remember correctly!

manicmonoliths

Course choices. Fun times!
Currently planning on doing:

Economic Analysis
Money and Banking
Mathematical Economics
Econometrics

and I'm really not sure about the rest, I'm considering all of the other Economics subjects and possibly Applied Finance from the Business school too. Does anyone have an experience with these? In particular Economics of Policy Issues.

shay_562

Mathematical Economics is good, especially is Harrison is still teaching it (he's an utter legend), and Econometrics is insane at points, but also one of the most interesting courses I've ever taken (when you're doing the practical stuff; the theory is pretty dry). Applied Finance was a shambles last year - we never actually got grades or results on the main project that counted for something like 20% of our grade, we just got a final grade at the end of the year, and given that the Christmas test was multiple choice and the final exam was copy/pasted from the previous year's one (to the point that he had occasionally forgotten to change company names in the middle of questions, and had left some of the figures the same), those final grades tended to be pretty decent.

andrew

Randomness wrote: »

I think I was thinking the same thing last year till they kinda broke the course down and gave a rough idea of what might come up or I think they gave us like 6-8 topics to study and we had to do 4 questions or something. Anyway over the next few weeks lecturers will start hinting/saying/guiding as to what to study etc. Well some will anyway if I remember correctly!

Thank fúck, I don't have a clue what I need to know for Sociology. If they don't hint though I'm a bit screwed.

quirkster

right some serious questions here from a 1st year 'FOOOKED FOR EXAMS' besshead

whats the story with this law exam?whats in the name of God is it going to be on, and what can one do to study it, because the notes doctor eimear sends out are terrible.we get no homework and no tutorials and i dont want a ****ty thing like law to be one of my failed subjects.

is it possible to see economics and maths/stats past summer exams?i have the business ones and im hoping theyll go a long way to helping me pass business but its economics and maths which im screwed for and would love to know what theyve been like past years.

politics and sociology- and 2nd,3rd or 4th years know or remember what the summer exams in these were like?ill throw law in there aswell.thanks in advance

dear god i am foooked

manicmonoliths

quirkster wrote: »

right some serious questions here from a 1st year 'FOOOKED FOR EXAMS' besshead

whats the story with this law exam?whats in the name of God is it going to be on, and what can one do to study it, because the notes doctor eimear sends out are terrible.we get no homework and no tutorials and i dont want a ****ty thing like law to be one of my failed subjects.

is it possible to see economics and maths/stats past summer exams?i have the business ones and im hoping theyll go a long way to helping me pass business but its economics and maths which im screwed for and would love to know what theyve been like past years.

politics and sociology- and 2nd,3rd or 4th years know or remember what the summer exams in these were like?ill throw law in there aswell.thanks in advance

dear god i am foooked

You can get all past exam papers on the tcd portal webpage http://isservices.tcd.ie/portal/

I didn't do law unfortunately so I can't really help you there, think most people said the exam was quite nice though.

Politics was very nice last year, we had a different lecturer though so maybe this has changed, but he gave us a very broad range of questions and a lot of choice, even knowing 4 or 5 topics quite well should be enough.

Sociology was pretty much the same, we were given 5 topics and told that 4 would definitely come up. Again different lecturers so I'm not sure if it's the same.

You'll have lectures towards the end of the term where lecturers will go over what's coming up in the exams.

quirkster

slightly put my mind at ease thanks dude!

Time Magazine

Brian Lucey on Questions and Answers now, for those that are interested.

Marshy

The Economist wrote: »

Brian Lucey on Questions and Answers now, for those that are interested.

Himself and Willie O'Dea had a bit of a face off which was funny. He's always Fianna Fáil's "damage limitation" merchant.

House of Wolves

Ok my course choices for next year (JS) are
Financial and Management Accounting
Applied Finance
Organisational theory and Change
Operations Management
Information Systems and introduction to Information technology
Human Resource Management

I was wondering would these be the best modules to do to set myself up for the chartered accountant exam?
I done economics and business this year, and I suck pretty bad at economics so I am moving as far as possible from it unless it is absolutely neccessary.
Would Industrial Economics be a better module than some of the others chosen above?
Thanks in advance to anyone that can help!

shay_562

The bad news is, TCD offers basically no exemptions for the ICAI exams. The only one of those that will be of any direct use to you is Financial and Management Accounting, and the follow-up SS course Financial Reporting and Analysis; not because they'll get you exemptions, but because you'll at least go into your training contract with a good grasp of the basics. Applied Finance is somewhat useful for understanding the most basic aspects of present discounted value, but beyond that isn't hugely useful. The rest have basically no application at all to a career in accounting; if you're set on that, pick the ones that you'll do best in and rely on good grades (and some extra-curricular stuff) to get you an internship with a big firm next summer. Good luck!

House of Wolves

thanks for the help, gave me a nice sickening feeling. lol
guess i should have looked into this stuff a long time ago!
well those are the subjects are sorta have to do (because they will be my best)
any idea what job prospects would come out of them? was thinking maybe civil service (although now isnt exactly a great time!)
I know your not a career advise service, but the help would be greatly appreciated!

zuchum

Anyone in SF Bess know about grades for passing the year?
I know last year you were allowed one subject over 30, under 40. Does that still apply?

The most annoying part is I'm pretty pleased with 5 subjects but the French department are ruining my life in so many ways and I fear failure.

andrew

I was reading the JF BESS exam requirements. They say, or appear to say, that to pass all you need is to pass 3 subjects and not get less than 20 in two. Is this true? Is it possible to get 40 40 40 21 21 0 and pass the year?!

shay_562

andrew wrote:

I was reading the JF BESS exam requirements. They say, or appear to say, that to pass all you need is to pass 3 subjects and not get less than 20 in two. Is this true? Is it possible to get 40 40 40 21 21 0 and pass the year?!

Seems unlikely. I seem to remember being told by all our lecturers that we had to pass each final exam in each subject, regardless of continuous assessment or other subjects, in order to pass the year. Sometimes they'll let you through by compensation if you're not too far off 40, but I'd say a series of scores like that and you'd be back in September.

House of Wolves wrote:

any idea what job prospects would come out of them? was thinking maybe civil service (although now isnt exactly a great time!)
I know your not a career advise service, but the help would be greatly appreciated!

No idea to be honest. You'd probably get hired by an accountancy firm with those subjects, assuming decent grades and some kind of involvement with general stuff. I applied for a few marketing firms with a similar subject set and got interviews. Maybe a trip to the CAS is in order?

manicmonoliths

andrew wrote: »

I was reading the JF BESS exam requirements. They say, or appear to say, that to pass all you need is to pass 3 subjects and not get less than 20 in two. Is this true? Is it possible to get 40 40 40 21 21 0 and pass the year?!

If you fail more than 1 you've failed overall and have to repeat. You can fail 1 and still pass provided you get a 2.2 in another paper.

So 50 40 40 40 40 32 is a pass because the 50 compensates for the 32
but 70 70 70 70 33 34 is a fail because you've failed more than 1.
Also 70 70 70 70 70 28 is a fail because you've failed by less than 30.

I've slightly narrowed my JS subject choice down a bit, I'm now confident on doing Econ analysis, money and banking, mathematical economics, econometrics and economics of policy issues.

I'm really unsure on my 6th though. Should I do European Economy for the joys of having 2 subjects taught by John O Hagan, Investment Analysis for the mathsy element that I love so much or Industrial Economics because it seems to be mostly about game theory??

marco_syco

Hi, just wondering if anyone has any advice with regards subjects for JS, given my subject requirements I can either take:
3050: investment analysis,
3530: accounting,
or 3541: applied finance.
Has anyone got any good or bad experiences of these subjects which they'd like to share!!?

scruttocks

manicmonoliths wrote: »

]
I'm really unsure on my 6th though. Should I do European Economy for the joys of having 2 subjects taught by John O Hagan, Investment Analysis for the mathsy element that I love so much or Industrial Economics because it seems to be mostly about game theory??

I'm going to be doing IA and IO. Depends on your future job hopes i suppose, managerial=IO, finance/analysis=IA.

See you in at least four classes next year anyway

shay_562

marco syco wrote:

3530: accounting,
or 3541: applied finance.

I did both of these, they're both pretty straightforward, assuming that Pat McCabe and Brian Lucey are still teaching both of them (check that out before you sign up, as different lecturer = entirely different course).

Accounting - the third year course is entirely focused around management accounting, which is a piece of piss by comparison to financial and is mainly based around your ability to do very basic stuff like budgeting, costing etc. About 1/3 of the course is theory-based, but again it's very easy to handle, and there isn't a huge amount to cover. Plus, Pat will tell you virtually the entire exam paper before the final, so that's cool. There's no continuous assessment from what I remember, just two term exams. A fair warning, it's boring as hell, but it's very easy, so balance out which you care more about.

Applied Finance - so, so easy in our year, but that was mainly because Lucey gave us a paper that was more than 80% identical to the year before (even forgetting to change company names in the problem questions at some points), which he may not do for you. Even if he doesn't, it's a very handy course - there's one big project he likes to set that he will never hand back to you, but aside from that it's very doable. Again, boring as hell (though probably slightly less so than Accounting), but will likely bring up your average.

manicmonoliths

scruttocks wrote: »

I'm going to be doing IA and IO. Depends on your future job hopes i suppose, managerial=IO, finance/analysis=IA.

See you in at least four classes next year anyway

I've picked European Economy. I'm not really into finance and stuff which is why I've gone off investment analysis and I was never a big fan of market structures and game theory which is what industrial looks mostly about, it looks like the micro part of econ analysis will probably cover a good bit of that anyway.

Oddly enough I'm really looking forward to next year, especially econometrics (for some bizarre reason) and policy issues. Can't wait!

quirkster

manicmonoliths wrote: »

If you fail more than 1 you've failed overall and have to repeat. You can fail 1 and still pass provided you get a 2.2 in another paper.

So 50 40 40 40 40 32 is a pass because the 50 compensates for the 32
but 70 70 70 70 33 34 is a fail because you've failed more than 1.
Also 70 70 70 70 70 28 is a fail because you've failed by less than 30.

If you get under 30% in more than two exams, am I right in saying that you must repeat EVERY exam in the repeats, no matter how good you did in the others??

Also when are the repeats this year?

d93c2inhxfok4y

What modules did everyone else in JF make for second year?

I'm doing:

Management 1
Management 2
Maths and Stats
Intermediate Economics
History of Political Thought
International Relations

So it'll most likely be a joint honours Business and Politics for the next three years, but I threw Intermediate Economics and Maths & Stats in there just to keep the possibility of doing single honours Business open.

Everyone happy with their choices?

The Walsho

Good stuff Conor. I've chosen :

Management 1
Management 2
Social Research (didn't want Maths, I figured I'd have enough of that shít in management 2)
History of Political Thought
International Relations
French

Am not sure I should have chosen French but I guess I can always change.

quirkster

Managment 1 + 2
Intro to social research (same reason as Walsho)
History of political thought
Comparative politics
Intro to investments
Broad curriculum course (whatever the hell this is )

manicmonoliths

quirkster wrote: »

If you get under 30% in more than two exams, am I right in saying that you must repeat EVERY exam in the repeats, no matter how good you did in the others??

Also when are the repeats this year?

From the BESS exam regulations :

Students in the Freshman years must repeat only those subjects in which they failed,
provided there are not more than two grades of F2, in which case the student must repeat
in all papers. (For example, the following set of results would mean that all papers must be
repeated: 56, 54, 48, 28, 25, 25; whereas with a run of marks such as 56, 54, 48, 34, 25, 25
only the three failed papers need be repeated.)

So yes, to answer your question.

Randomness

Eva Petite Rank wrote: »

What modules did everyone else in JF make for second year?

I'm doing:

Management 1
Management 2
Maths and Stats
Intermediate Economics
History of Political Thought
International Relations

So it'll most likely be a joint honours Business and Politics for the next three years, but I threw Intermediate Economics and Maths & Stats in there just to keep the possibility of doing single honours Business open.

Everyone happy with their choices?

The Walsho wrote: »

Good stuff Conor. I've chosen :

Management 1
Management 2
Social Research (didn't want Maths, I figured I'd have enough of that shít in management 2)
History of Political Thought
International Relations
French

Am not sure I should have chosen French but I guess I can always change.

quirkster wrote: »

Managment 1 + 2
Intro to social research (same reason as Walsho)
History of political thought
Comparative politics
Intro to investments
Broad curriculum course (whatever the hell this is )

Very good very good, some soon to be rising JFs doing Bus/Pol. Good choice

I would advise you to attend the lectures for both IR and Comparative in the first week of MT to get a feel for which one you would prefer, I do IR and enjoy it (but it's hard) and I've heard varying things about Comparative.

Also no real maths in MGT 2 (Accounting by another name), just calculator work really, %s etc.

HPT lecturer is a legend, privilege to listen to all he knows.

quirkster

Good stuff randomness thanks for that! Whats the deal with this broad curriculum thing?

Randomness

Emmm not sure really I don't do BC but know a few people who are doing the Film Studies one, I think you just apply and it's a lottery whether you get your preferred one (I could be totally wrong), Film Studies is very popular (naturally, Monday Night Movies sessions ftw!). For most people the BC course is something fun outside of the regular stuff and they don't take it as seriously (however this is based on my knowledge of people doing Film Studies so that kinda makes sense).

andrew

History of Political Thought
Comparitive Politics
Intnl. Relations
Intermediate Economics
Economics of Public Policy
Management 2

A lot of people seem to be going for business. Also, no more maths, wooo!

manicmonoliths

andrew wrote: »

History of Political Thought
Comparitive Politics
Intnl. Relations
Intermediate Economics
Economics of Public Policy
Management 2

A lot of people seem to be going for business. Also, no more maths, wooo!

There's a small bit of maths in Intermediate Economics, nothing beyond Lagrange multipliers though. Would be right in saying you're thinking of doing schols?