Final year Business Studies

jimbod

does anybody have any advice on final year business studies?? have to pick between finance, economics, information systems, law and marketing. Is it true that it doesnt really matter which one you pick? i was going to do finance but if this is the case i will prob just pick the easiest one for getting the degree.
Any advice on this and what is the easiest would be great.

Defenestrate

I'm very interested in this too, they tell us nothing! You can view the 3rd year modules at this link: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/module_contents.php?function=4&programme=BS But, there's no indication of which modules are for which specialisms other than guessing by their codes.

I'm leaning towards IT myself even though I dont fancy sitting in front of screens for another year after INTRA. It's important to pick the easiest option as it's the grade, not the specialism that is important to graduate employees.

Does anyone have any experience of these specialisms?

jimbod

Cheers, i had a look at that...i see what ya mean, there is no way of knowing which subjects belong to which specialism.
Yeah alot of people seem to be opting for info systems.I wonder what the results were like this year.
Im probly gonna contact someone at the careers office and find out which is likely to get ya the best grades. If anybody knows please post it up!

Flex

Hey, I just finished my Business degree this year and did Finance. I too heard people saying that it doesnt really matter waht specialism you choose because at the end of it you get a Bachelor of Business Studies regardless of the type, but specialising in a certain area may be more favourable to employers if youre applying for certain roles.

Anyway, I had friends who also did Finance and others who did the HR, Marketing and Info Systems specialisms. And (this is entirely my own opinion!) I think that in terms of most demanding it wouldve been

Finance
Info Systems
Marketing
HR

in that order. However, apparantly Law requires alot of studying and research and even though I thought Finance was kinda hard, I found it to be managable and the projects and assignments werent too bad either. I think only 8 people from our class did that specialism this year and over half the class chose Finance.

Personally I just picked Finance because I didnt really know what course would suit me so I thought finance would be the one to open the most job oppertunities after I had finished. As I said, thats all just my opinion though!

Good luck!

Defenestrate

Thanks Flex, that is much appreciated.

When you say Info Systems is one of the most demanding though, do you mean in terms of time spent working on projects etc, or difficulty of course content?

Flex

Defenestrate wrote: »

Thanks Flex, that is much appreciated.

When you say Info Systems is one of the most demanding though, do you mean in terms of time spent working on projects etc, or difficulty of course content?

Well, what my friends said was that throughout the year the assignments and projects for Info Systems and Marketing took up alot of time and required alot of work, but they found the exams to be straight forward enough. I though Finance was the other way around; coursework throughout the year was easy but I thought the exams were kinda tough

jimbod

Thanks for the post flex. Just one other thing, did you have to put alot of work in? and i know it depends on the individual but would it be very hard to get a 2.1 doing finance? the graduate programme i want to do would require this. I am now leaning towards economics.

Flex

jimbod wrote: »

Thanks for the post flex. Just one other thing, did you have to put alot of work in? and i know it depends on the individual but would it be very hard to get a 2.1 doing finance? the graduate programme i want to do would require this. I am now leaning towards economics.

I dont think it would be that hard to get a 2.1. That being said I feel like I put in a great deal of work during the year and during the exams and Iv ended up with a 2.2 :rolleyes: lol

Defenestrate

Flex wrote: »

Well, what my friends said was that throughout the year the assignments and projects for Info Systems and Marketing took up alot of time and required alot of work, but they found the exams to be straight forward enough. I though Finance was the other way around; coursework throughout the year was easy but I thought the exams were kinda tough

Well I don't mind putting the work in over the year, especially in the project work so thats's cool. Thanks again.

pilot1087

I just finished the business degree this year as well. I choose the information systems option, mainly because it was the one that appealed to me most.

It's true that there is a good bit of work involved in the assignments but I thought it was worth it because it reduces the number of exams that you have to sit that are worth 100%.

If I can give you one piece of advice it is this. Do not under any circumstances take the "history of economic thought module" it is ridiculously difficult. We thought that because there was no exam (assesment is done by 2 essays) that it would ease the work load in the run up to exam time but myself and my friends were unbelievably stressed trying to get the essays done. The lecturer expects a standard that is totally unfair. This module cost me my 1.1, I had to settle for a high 2.1.

Defenestrate

Thanks Pilot. If you don't mind me asking, what was the IT project work like? Was it building problem solutions in Excel & Access, or essays/theoretical?

pilot1087

The project work in semester one involved creating spreadsheets using excel. We were told to design a spreadsheet for a company that wanted to purchase a fleet of cars. We had to include as many functions as possible, i.e. depreciation, charts, sum formulae etc. The lecturer will recommend a great book that shows you how to do all this

In semester 2 we had to design a database using microsoft access. It could be any database as long as we used the functions that were requestd.

Both assignments were very managable if you followed the lecture notes. Also, the lecturers are very helpful and have no problem giving you a digout if your stuck.

There were very few essays, it was mostly practical work

Defenestrate

That sounds good, I'm quite competent with Excel although I haven't gone anywhere near Access in years! Thanks again for the info.

Snapper1

I specialised in Law two years ago and i'd advise you to think pretty carefully about which option of the five you pick. My (somewhat obvious) general advise would be to go for the area which interests you the most and where you could see yourself working in.

Sure you could pick whichever area you think is going to get you a 1.1 but you'll have an easier time studying an area that is of personal interest to you. Plus interviewers are going to dig a bit deeper than you're general grade so you'll have to have some major blagging skills to get a finance/marketing/etc job having done 6 or 7 IT subjects in your final year.

With regard to law in particular (and directly contradicting my advise above lol), I really fell into this option as it was a tie between it and finance and I figured I'd enjoy studying words rather than numbers. But I turned out to really enjoy it and have pursued it a lot further. The course covers areas which are business-related but they still give you a good introduction to what is a huge area if you do decide to go further. Modules include EU law, contract law and company law which are all exams to be passed to become a solicitor. Then you've commercial modules like competition law, arbitration and employment law which are more business-specific.

Overall, the standard of lecturing is v good and the exams are more than manageable. I know I made the right decision anyway, hope you do too.

Defenestrate

Thanks Snapper. I guess I'm lucky I do have serious blagging skills then!

nuttlys

Just finished Business Studies with specialism in Marketing.

Had this discussion before with mates on all specialisms n we generally agreed on this:

Hardest (how difficult for average joe):
1. Law
2. Finance
3. Info Systems
4. Marketing
5. HR

Most Workload throughout the year:
1. Marketing
2. Info Systems
3. HR
4. Law/Finance

According to the passlist, 21% of those who passed got 1.1's, 72% got 2.1's, 6% got 2.2's, n 1% got a 3rd.

at least 6 of the 21 who got 1st's were in marketing, which is pretty good considering that marketing is really only marked out of 80% (very rare you will get above an 80 in marketing versus say finance or info systems where when your right your right and get full marks)

Finally there is the competiveness element. marketing appeared to have most competition between students with the amount of CA involved but its all good natured. I'd suggest you take the specialism that you are most interested in not the one you reckon will get you an easy degree. As you can see its nearly impossible not to get a 2.1. Especially since they have dropped the grade down to 60%.

Hope that helps.

tvr

I don't know about finance but Information System was defo marked out of 80%. It was all subjective. What is with dcu not actually marking out of 100%.

Yes I would agree with Info Systems having a higher semester work load. However the plus is that two of the modules have about 70% cont assessment.

In generally my recommendation to anyone would always as one of the previous posters said, go to one that your most interested in.

thischarmingman

I graduated about five years ago and I specialised in HR. I reckon it depends what you want. If you have ambitions of getting a first I think finance is the way forward (as mentioned earlier). I studied my ass off and finished 6th in the class...but got a 2.1. The five people ahead of me (who all worked equally hard) did finance and all got a 1.1.

HR is a nice subject to get a 2.1 (marketing too) with less effort involved than law or finance (in my opinion)

I don't think it matters what you specialise in. I specialised in HR but have never worked in it...have worked in finance and marketing since I left