Commerce or Arts?

CeilingOrFloor

Hey guys!
I'm a prospective first year student (2015/16) and I'm looking for help deciding which course to take. I have an interest in both Commerce and Arts and I am finding it difficult deciding which one to put as my first choice. To be honest I don't really know what I'd be interested in career wise - though I'd have somewhat of an interest in hospitality/hotels or pretty much anything people related.
I wonder if you guys could give me and idea of the hours I'd be looking at in each course, as well as how difficult they are, whether or not they lead anywhere at the end and just generally if they are good degrees.
If I do arts I'd be thinking of doing English and possibly Classics and History and for Commerce I'd mainly be interested in Public Relations and Human Resources.

Thanks in advance for any answers I do get!

Pen Rua

First year Commerce student here. I really do like Commerce. I did both Accounting and Business in the Leaving, so they have been a huge help (especially Accounting - I've to put in bear minimum effort for the Accounting modules).

Maybe just to give you an idea of the modules you'll have in first year:
AY104 and AY105: Accounting modules. You'll have no problem if you have LC Accounting.

EC142 and EC143: Economics. I wasn't fond of Micrco (the lecturer wasn't such a nice guy) but Macro is far better - far more interesting.

MA119 and MA109: Your Maths and Stats. You'll meet the legend of Ray Ryan here. A very Project Maths-esque course, very applied. MA119 (first semester) won't be hard if you have LC Higher Math. MA109 has stats which I just always faltered with but the lecturer is going at a slow pace which helps.

MG110 and MK101: Management is in first semester. A horrible module if I'm honest. Content is good, but the lecturer lacked any enthusiasm. Attendance rarely went about 50 out of some 400 B Comm studnents... Marketing is better, but a long evening with a double lecture.

MS120 and MS120: Business Information Management/Systems. BIS was hard to be honest. Entertaining lectures (Toy Story!) but a totally different approach to learning versus secondary school. BIM is a little bit better.

Language/Skills/Law: You have a choice between a language (I took Spanish) or Skills (apparently a terrible module) and Law. Spanish is tough, but the lecturer really pushes you.

I obviously can't comment on Arts but hopefully it gives you a better insight to Commerce.

Jijsaw

^ Thank you very much, I've Commerce & German down as my #1.
Can you elaborate a bit more on the maths modules? I'm a B student in OL but I still find maths a bit difficult. Can you post the kind of questions you're asked please?

The Lost Sheep

Arts goes from 16 hours or so a week in first year to 12 or so in second and third.
Am currently in 2nd year doing Soc&Pol and English. So much choice within each subject in Arts in later years so great variety in terms of what you could do. Really do get to do what you want...

CeilingOrFloor

Pen Rua wrote: »

First year Commerce student here. I really do like Commerce. I did both Accounting and Business in the Leaving, so they have been a huge help (especially Accounting - I've to put in bear minimum effort for the Accounting modules).

Maybe just to give you an idea of the modules you'll have in first year:
AY104 and AY105: Accounting modules. You'll have no problem if you have LC Accounting.

EC142 and EC143: Economics. I wasn't fond of Micrco (the lecturer wasn't such a nice guy) but Macro is far better - far more interesting.

MA119 and MA109: Your Maths and Stats. You'll meet the legend of Ray Ryan here. A very Project Maths-esque course, very applied. MA119 (first semester) won't be hard if you have LC Higher Math. MA109 has stats which I just always faltered with but the lecturer is going at a slow pace which helps.

MG110 and MK101: Management is in first semester. A horrible module if I'm honest. Content is good, but the lecturer lacked any enthusiasm. Attendance rarely went about 50 out of some 400 B Comm studnents... Marketing is better, but a long evening with a double lecture.

MS120 and MS120: Business Information Management/Systems. BIS was hard to be honest. Entertaining lectures (Toy Story!) but a totally different approach to learning versus secondary school. BIM is a little bit better.

Language/Skills/Law: You have a choice between a language (I took Spanish) or Skills (apparently a terrible module) and Law. Spanish is tough, but the lecturer really pushes you.

I obviously can't comment on Arts but hopefully it gives you a better insight to Commerce.

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply; I really appreciate it!
Just two more questions really quick: 1) I'm a pass maths student, do you think will I find certain parts of commerce difficult? (Also I haven't done leaving cert business/accounting) 2) Would you be able to give me a rough idea on the number of assignments as well as the overall hours?

CeilingOrFloor

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Arts goes from 16 hours or so a week in first year to 12 or so in second and third.
Am currently in 2nd year doing Soc&Pol and English. So much choice within each subject in Arts in later years so great variety in terms of what you could do. Really do get to do what you want...

Hey thanks a million for the response!
I wonder could you give me a brief idea of the amount of assignments I'd have to do? See whilst I love the idea of reading the literature on the English course, I don't know how motivated I'd be to complete a massive amount of essays.
Also is there any chance you could give me an idea of Soc Pol and perhaps some info on the subject you dropped for a second year?
Thanks in advance!

CeilingOrFloor

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Arts goes from 16 hours or so a week in first year to 12 or so in second and third.
Am currently in 2nd year doing Soc&Pol and English. So much choice within each subject in Arts in later years so great variety in terms of what you could do. Really do get to do what you want...

Hey thanks a million for the response!
I wonder could you give me a brief idea of the amount of assignments I'd have to do? See whilst I love the idea of reading the literature on the English course, I don't know how motivated I'd be to complete a massive amount of essays.
Also is there any chance you could give me an idea of Soc Pol and perhaps some info on the subject you dropped for second year?
Thanks in advance!

pmasterson95

I got a C in pass maths in Leaving Cert. Got 60's in Maths and 70's in Stats. You don't need honours. They start at basic levels and work through. As long as you are willing to show up or at least do all assignments you'll be grand. I didnt even do LC accounting but the tutorials were excellent and I flew by that. Its not as hard as the above guy said. If your willing to work and do assignments Commerce is fine. If ya wanna just go on the piss and do f all you wont last in Commerce. Simples.

pmasterson95

And if you've Holian for stats you can skip those. Those lectures are a waste of time. But she never changes her exam papers. You can just learn off answers for at least 2 questions without knowing whats going and you'll get them right.

Pen Rua

Jijsaw wrote: »

^ Thank you very much, I've Commerce & German down as my #1.
Can you elaborate a bit more on the maths modules? I'm a B student in OL but I still find maths a bit difficult. Can you post the kind of questions you're asked please?

MA119 is Maths and Calculus. It's fairly basic linear equations and so on. A new method to go Simultaneous is introduced which might be a little troublesome. The last few weeks, you'll move to Calculus. This is fairly basic also, but if you're coming from OL you'll have to put in a little more practice.

As for MA109, you start off with Calculus again. This goes beyond LC Higher, so again maybe some more work will be needed. Stats begins in Week 4, and it's going okay thus far.

Don't forget, we have a resource called SUMS here. It's a drop in center for help with maths, as well as tutors and the lecturers are approachable.

In both Semesters, everything is started from scratch, assuming no prior knowledge c:

CeilingOrFloor wrote: »

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply; I really appreciate it!
Just two more questions really quick: 1) I'm a pass maths student, do you think will I find certain parts of commerce difficult? (Also I haven't done leaving cert business/accounting) 2) Would you be able to give me a rough idea on the number of assignments as well as the overall hours?

The Maths modules will probably be challenging. A lot of people moan that it's too hard, but these are the same people that regularly skip lectures... There are a lot of supports too, including SUMS.

Assignments in Semester 1: Skills to Succeed have regular ones, but I can't comment fully.
Spanish beginners has weekly assignments/tests.
Economics has weekly online assignments.
Maths has periodical tests and assignments to do online.
BIS will have a group project halfway through. My advice for this, find a group of four other people, get to know them and make sure they're hard workers and it'll be no problem.

Assignments in Semester 2: Business Law have none afaik.
Spanish, Economics are the same.
Stats has two tests on Calculus, then weekly assignments on Stats.
Marketing has weekly online tests and quizs.
BIM has a group project which we're in the middle of atm, based on Excel.

Lectures are about 16 hours, and when you factor in tutorials it comes to about 19/20 hours. There, there abouts.

The Lost Sheep

CeilingOrFloor wrote: »

Hey thanks a million for the response!
I wonder could you give me a brief idea of the amount of assignments I'd have to do? See whilst I love the idea of reading the literature on the English course, I don't know how motivated I'd be to complete a massive amount of essays.
Also is there any chance you could give me an idea of Soc Pol and perhaps some info on the subject you dropped for second year?
Thanks in advance!

First year English 4 essays 2000 words 2 each seemester
1 exam per semester
Soc and Pol 3 short assignments and an essay of 2000 words per semester. All very easy
Also did Philosophy and History. Didn't particularly like either