Category Archives: informational

Mar 31 2012
17 Comments
FAQ, Informational, Majors, Student Profile

The Career Kid!

Ahh, it’s that time of the year again, when many final year students realise that they must start to decide on what they’ll be doing next year in terms of employment.

Now in my course there were a bunch of career losers, yes, a LOT. The University of Melbourne is probably renowned for these types of students.

Now let me describe the stereotypical career loser.

Generally, this is the type of student who isn’t exceptionally talented, maybe just slightly above average at the very best, but usually average or slightly below. They CONSTANTLY just think about their career prospects. From bitching about their marks, to whining about how they got rejected when their less career-focused friend got the offer at firm X or company Y.

No, this is not some nerd who just wants to get a killer transcript, and then tear it up in the real world; these losers are the ones that think that rocking up to a careers event is going to give them a massive edge over their peers.

Often, they are very very ratty, they won’t reveal information about what jobs they applied for, will not help anyone else out in anything job/uni related (including their friends) and are absolute dogs when it comes to passing on assignments to others.

Example:

Kid A: Hey dude, did you apply for firm X’s vacation program?

Kid B: Nah man, they open?!

Kid A: They closed weeks ago!

*Two weeks later*

Kid A: Hey, I got rejected at firm X at the final stage

Kid B: Oh I actually got an offer from firm X

Kid A: ??!?!

Now, imagine the awkwardness… this is normal for career losers though.

Usually, without sounding overly racist, these kids are usually Asian (I’m expecting some raging from this, but it’s just merely an observation), but obviously this isn’t always the case, a few white kids and curries are also of this mould.

Career kids will always be discussing dates of applications opening and wheather anyone has heard back from X company in regards to their Y position. They will often have “friends” who they solely discuss job prospects with, nothing else. A catch up with these “friends” will probably entail trying to gain information regarding the group stage of Company X’s process and what types of questions to prepare for. Basically, prepare to be used by these type of people if you are their so called “friends”.

Most career kids will spend extensive time on trying to bolster up their resumes so they can have a chance to get their desired jobs. More often then not, they do not attain that dream.

Career Fairs:

This is basically Christmas for Career kids. There are a couple of these during the year and are basically opportunities for companies to spit their propaganda about how great they are. Career kids will be anticipating these events for months, by preparing questions, picking out what to wear, how to do their hair and the persona they will adopt during the fair.

Now the only reason you should go to these is to leech the freebies (Usually company stationary) which they offer, nothing else. The information being presented is often found on their website or just Googled. There is no point trying to go there and impress the representatives and think you’ll now be ahead of your peers, because you spoke to an employee of your dream company.

It’s very rare that talking to a Junior HR Consultant or Junior Analyst at Company Z is going to get you a gig there. All you’ll really hear is the lame generic responses from their website, with a fun twist on it.

Aims:

Most loser career kids in Commerce will be aiming to get into the Holy Grail of Finance that is Investment Banking. Now, considering how small the investment banking intake is in Australia (and the field in general), it’s unlikely any of these career losers will actually get “snapped up”.

Let’s look at it from another point of view: Investment Bank A plans to hire 3 graduates Australia-wide for 2012, 421 Career losers turn out to their Sydney & Melbourne industry nights. There is a good chance that the people who actually do get into Investment Bank A aren’t even at the event. All that time and effort to rock up, with no real gain.

Here’s a real life example of a career loser:

I was talking to someone and asked them what their plans were for the winter break back last year and this is the response I got:

“Yeah, bolster up my resume these holidays so I can get an Institutional Role at one of the Big 4 Banks, basically it’s IB at a smaller level!”

This is the model response you should aim to give when you are a career loser. Your existence revolves around your career, not your friends, not your family, not your hobbies, but the job you do.

I can imagine talking to these people in a social setting, everything asked by them will be in an interview-style question, which is why I generally avoid career losers.

Another example:

I was walking around university back last year and saw something really interesting.

In one of the study rooms in Frank Tate building there were 5 fobs doing one of those online tests as part of many recruitment processes these days.

1 Fob was at the white board drawing stuff, another was with a calculator sitting next to the fob who was inputting responses on to the laptop whilst another fob was there sitting with a piece of paper working things out. The last fob had a stop watch in his hand.

After seeing this, I really was shocked.

Tagged
Mar 21 2012
17 Comments
Informational, Majors, subjects

BCom Majors I: Accounting

In my latest series of posts, I’ll be going through each of the majors in Bachelor of Commerce. I may also do some majors for other courses too with some guest posts.

BCom Majors: Accounting

“Because I can’t get a job with any other major”

The accounting major is most popular major of the BCom at UoM. This is reinforced by the multiple lecture streams available for most core accounting subjects. Below is a rundown of the Accounting subjects:

Accounting Reports & Analysis (ARA): Pretty straightforward. Basic bookkeeping. Just a revision of VCE Accounting with a bit of a difference in some content. I don’t see any reason how this subject cannot get smashed, it’s very easy.

Accounting Transactions & Analysis (ATA): Much the same as ARA. Just covers different topics. Another easy subject to score in.

Accounting Processes & Analysis (APA): An absolute joke of a subject covering garbage topics which are very easy to spin some nice BS on. Great average booster if you’re good at BS.

Intermediate Financial Accounting (IFA): Probably the hardest subject in the major. Easy to smash it if you know what you’re doing though. Big consolidation question on the exam is usually pretty fun.

Cost Management (CM): Very easy, lots of easy theory questions which are common sense and then there’s all these costing methods and variances to learn which are pretty simple too. Hear that now there’s a lot more theory in it these days which is probably making the subject even easier, if that’s possible.

Business Finance (Bus Fi): Just simple finance. Mid Semester test for this subject is basically a free 25% since there’s like a few multi-choice questions which are pretty straight forward. Also this is a subject which has massive amounts of FOBs. Don’t be surprised if you’re tutorial has around 90-95% of students being FOB.

Financial Accounting (FA): Lots of lame theory from business finance and some basic working out. Few of the topics are quite interesting but most of this subject is largely garbage.

Auditing & Assurance Services (Audit): Absolute joke of a subject. Impossible to fail, Easy to H1, hard to get 90+ on.

Enterprise Performance Management (EPM): A mix of Organisational Behaviour and Cost Management according to most people. Much the same as auditing in terms of scores. Hard to fail.

Principles of Business Law (PBL): Easy H1 with a ton of rote learning and regular quizzes.

Corporate Law (Corp): Content is quite interesting, subject is generally not bad. Exam weighting is heavy however, so just cram during SWOTVAC.

Taxation Law (Tax): Ratty and very lame content. Not too difficult to get H1 but tough to get 90s. Get a good partner for the assignment.

The FOB contingent is high for the Accounting major, as it’s basically a permanent residency factory for most FOBs, but don’t let that deter you from pursuing it! There’s still plenty of local students in it too.

In terms of career outcomes for graduates, most go into professional services like the big 4, the less worthy go to mid tiers, some go straight into industry, and the super geniuses go into government since the exit opportunities from the APS are amazing and going to Canberra is cool and super fun!

Most of the locals will end up being employed prior to graduation unless they’ve got a horrid transcript, even then most still get decent jobs. For FOBs, they usually try to get PR and get a job here or end up back home or in a nearby country.

Oh, and before someone goes through and starts picking out grammar and spelling mistakes, just note that this post was written on my phone during a commute in a foreign country and I can’t be bothered going through and fixing it all.

Mar 06 2012
6 Comments
informational

Petition Losers

Sorry for the delay between posts, but being on a work trip to the other side of the world really has hindered my ability to think about the things from back at UoM. Along with that I’ve been doing some pretty insane hours which has also been a pain.

If there’s one thing I learnt during my time at UoM, it’s how to deal with those annoying people asking for your signature on their petition for some cause which I have zero interest in.

These petition seekers generally target built up areas such as Union House, Monash Road, Wilson Hall as well as outside Bailleau Library.

Back in first year, I used to be a bit shy so I just got my phone out when I saw them from a distance  and either pretended to text or take a phone call, which worked usually, or i just politely said “No thanks”. But that’s how everyone deals with them and that’s no fun.

Then in second and third year, as my confidence grew, I begun trolling them with the most retarded things I could think of.

For example:

Petition Loser: “Would you like to sign this petition for gay marriage”

Me: “I haven’t signed”

Petition Loser: “Yes, you can sign here”

Me: “No, I have not physically signed”

Petition Loser: “You can sign here then!”

Me: “DON’T YOU GET IT, I HAVE NOT SIGNED IT”

Petition loser will have a super baffled look by then.

There’s also a few others that I also use, such as using a FOB accent and purposely making no sense at all to test their patience. I’m amazed at how much tolerance most of these poor souls have. All that for a useless signature.

Sometimes, there’s some petition seekers that get fairly aggressive, these warrant a more direct troll. Generally attacking their cause then throwing in some personal insults get the job done quite well.

Tagged
Feb 27 2012
3 Comments
FAQ, informational

The Student Portal

The student portal at UoM is known for it’s reliability and consistency. It really is an exhibition of how the University has strongly utilised the technological advances of this modern era.

As many subjects require assignment submission via online means, never hesitate to leave submission of assignments to the very last minute as the student portal and LMS will always be functioning adequately.

Maintenence rarely occurs so do not worry about the downtime which could arise in those infrequent instances of maintenece being undertaken.

You could be be seeing these messages, very rarely:

These act as a great opportunity to justify why your assignment was submitted late, in the rare event of a problem occuring.

Generally speaking, clearing your browsers cache works wonders in solving most of the problems.

Your study plan, which you will use to manage your subjects is also an amazing insight into the fantastic utilisation of technology by UoM. It is never ever wrong, follow it religiously and you will prosper. For whatever reason that you may think that there’s a mistake in your study plan, you should go an speak to the student centre after waiting 23403 minutes in the waiting line.

Tagged
Feb 25 2012
19 Comments
informational, subjects

Joke Breadth Subjects!

A lot of students will have or are in the process of finalising their subjects for this upcoming semester. Under the Melbourne Model, all undergraduate courses have breadth subject requirements, which if you don’t already know, are basically forced elective outside of your faculty.

Many students are encouraged to be picking breadth subjects which they have an interest in, whereas in reality, students are usually picking the easiest, most retarded subjects to bolster their averages.

Here’s a bit of a guide in picking breadth subjects.

If you really want to do something you have an interest in, then sure, go right ahead, you’ll probably end up doing well if you enjoy the content.

But, if you’re after an absolute joke of a breadth subject which you really don’t aim to put much effort into and get a decent mark in, then focus on subjects offered by the following faculties.

Music – All the lower level subjects here are entertainingly easy. The patterns for most of the subjects under the music faculty are as follows: You basically rock up, mess around with instruments, get marks for participation, write up one, two or three trash essays and submit.

Also, if you can actually play an instrument, then pretend that you can’t actually play that instrument at all and that you’re an absolute beginner at the beginning of the semester.  This way, you can “Wow!” the tutor at the end of the semester by showing how much you’ve improved and that easy H1 will be confirmed.

University-wide breadth – Being university-wide breadth just means that it’s a breadth subject regardless of what course you do. Most of these are pretty easy, but I’ve heard a few people whinge about some poorly taught and harshly marked subjects within this category, but more likely than not, it’ll be a joke.

The most legendary joke breadth subject, Australia in the Wine World falls under University-wide breadth category. That should give you an indication of the level of seriousness the subjects under this category should be treated with.

Education – No surprises here, the education faculty is a well-known joke amongst all students, and naturally, so are their subjects. Subjects such as Sports Coaching: Theory and Practice really do just ask to get destroyed.

Mathematics – This won’t apply to everyone, but it’s common to see some non-science students who are quite strong at Maths do very easy maths subjects for breadth like Calculus 1. Obviously they will get at least 90 in that subject since its rather straight forward, but if you’re not good at maths or numbers in general, then avoid it.

Languages – If you know another language aside from English at a pretty decent level, then you should try to find the most beginner variation of that language to do as breadth. For FOBs, this usually means doing Chinese 1A and getting a huge mark in it to make up for their sub-standard marks in their core subjects.

Lastly, intensive subjects which you can do over a week or two during mid-semester break or winter break are a great way to minimise your workload for a difficult upcoming semester. In order to find them just use the Breadth Search page on the University’s website.

Tagged ,
Feb 22 2012
2 Comments
informational

Tips for returning students!

I decided to continue with the theme of posts revolving around the impending return to university.

This post is perfect for all the students entering another year of UoM, essentially, all the students that are not entering university for the first time.

Now that you’ve been at the university for more than a semester, you must have a sense of entitlement and importance. You know more than the new students, you have an idea of how to approach your studies and you have an idea of what to expect for this upcoming year. Make this be known to every new student. You will become highly respected and valued. Freshers will look up to you as their idols. Your value as a human being will increase exponentially.

Being a later year student, your paramount goal is to look down on every new student. You should whinge and rant about how annoying the freshers are, or how they stole your usual spot on South Lawn, or how their jokes suck. Just try to find any small potential flaw that new students may present and repeatedly exploit it to increase your perceived worth. The more you rant and whinge, the cooler you will appear.

Also, absolutely ignore the fact that not so long ago, you too were a fresher, this never needs to be brought up, because right now, you’re that much better than what they ever will be.

If, for whatever reason, a question arises about your initial days at the university, here is a powerful strategy to combat it.

Always mention how things were better back when you started, as for example:

New Student: “How was Orientation when you were a jaffy?”

2nd Year Student: “Yeah things were awesome back then, so much better than now”

New Student: “Oh, how so?”

2nd Year Student: “You know, stuff was just better, it just was”

You could also throw in something like “You’ll realise what I mean when you’ve been here a while like me”

You never need to really elaborate why things were “better” but just be adamant in the fact that your first days at university were undoubtedly better.
Even though someone has picked up and pointed out that you were once a fresher, you have mitigated the potential hazard by maintaining your superiority, whilst also repeating the fact that you’ve been a student at the university for a while.

For students getting questions relating to specific subjects, you must scare the freshers by mentioning things such as the following:

“University is so much harder than High School”

“[Subject name] is so hard, a lot of kids failed when I did it, but I got H1”

“Most new students find that subject very difficult, but I managed to do well”

Regardless of how difficult the subject really is or what grade you actually got, you must make it seem to the new student that everything is very difficult, but you still creamed it and did very well. You will sound like an absolute genius and further maintain your dominance over them.

 

 

Above is an example of how you should assert dominance over first year students, metaphorically of course!

 

These tips will definitely assist you greatly in becoming the coolest person you can be. Remember though; only tell your close friends where you got these cool ideas from, you don’t want everyone trying to copy your new found style!


Tagged ,
Feb 21 2012
5 Comments
informational

Settling in – The first few weeks covered!

Since a lot of new freshers will be slowly coming to terms with life at the university over the coming weeks, I thought this entry was appropriate.

Here are some useful tips for all new students starting at The University of Melbourne this year. I’ve taken the opportunity to have them broken down so it’s easier to remember than large slabs of text.

Lecture etiquette

Lectures are for talking. Why else would the seats be so closely positioned? Utilise this convenience and talk as freely as you want.  Also, try to ignore the distracting speaker at the front; you will get better at this with experience.

Navigating around the campus

So, Orientation week has concluded and classes have begun.

You’re obviously lost, and have been forced to use the map from your diary constantly to find the right buildings for your classes. This is grand, now all the latter year students will know that you’re a fresher, but don’t worry, you’re still cool! You too will be one of them next year!

Coolness

In order to be cool, you must wear your rugby top or hoodie from your high school; it’s a form of “peacocking”, so you can attract peers from your high school, and also stand out amongst a crowd. This is a perfect chance to show off the fact that you went to top school such as PLC, or MGS, or MHS, and maybe, just maybe, an opportunity to drop your ATAR score.

Another method of letting people know what school you went to is as follows.

Instead of saying:

“Back in high school…”

You say, for example:

“Back at Scotch...”

This regulates the dominance in your favour when speaking to new people. Remember, you don’t have to wait around for someone to ask what school you went to, bring it up as much as you can without anyone asking!

Note: Do not attempt any of the above if you attended a terrible school.

ATAR/ENTER

The ATAR/ENTER score is the perfect means to demonstrate your value. It is a number that defines you, a means to gain respect, a humble conversation starter. Drop it as many times as you can, but only do this if you got 99+ or else you’re just average, and nobody respects average people.

Friends

So you’ve met someone in your first tutorial; you should definitely refer them as your “friend”, because maybe if you do, they will become your friend. This is a successfully proven method.

Students from shitty suburbs

You’ve met someone that came from a school in a dodgy suburb. This is an example of how a conversation should be held.

Them: Oh, so what school did you go to?

You: MLC, you?

Them: Ringwood Secondary College

You: (In a derogatory tone) Ringwood…

Basically you must repeat the suburb name in a deprecating manner in order to gain their respect. This will win you many friends. You will get further than them in life.

Ice-breakers in first tutorial

Your tutor will most likely go around the room and ask everyone to introduce themselves. You’ll more than likely be asked your name, your potential majors, and one thing you did last summer.

For that last question, you should always respond with someone like “I pre-read all my textbooks over summer” or when you’re in second or third years respond like this “I did an internship at ____ and I’m only just starting practice exams for this subject!” There are two key parts to this, you MUST brag about your internship to your fellow peers to gain their respect, but to be humble you must lie and tell them that you’re only just starting practice exams for the subject, when in fact you’ve already started writing your own practice exams, after completing all the available ones.

Also, you may be asked to talk a little about yourself. This is how you should approach this question

“My name is ___, and I want to be a [Dream job title/profession]”

This will show how determined you are and people will respect you and want to be your friend. Nobody really cares that you like long walks by the beach or eating Italian food, they only want to know what you aim to be in the future, this will be a means to infer your worth.

Gaining respect within your tutorial

Put your hand up for every question, even if you don’t know the answer, this shows everyone you have initiative, people will think you’re an absolute king/queen if you do. Your peers will think “Wow, this person must know it all” even when you blurt out wrong answers, because as mentioned before, it’s all in the appearance!

If you want to take this a step further and show that you really are the master, then you must attempt to correct your tutor. Do this even if you’re not sure if he or she is incorrect. Just trying to, is a show of how knowledgeable you are, regardless of how legitimate your replacement answer is. Remember, it’s not what you say that counts; it’s how you say it. Yelling out a wrong answer confidently is cooler than responding with a correct answer quietly. Respect from all the students in the tutorial will ensue.

Also, one final tip: Give your opinion on everything; you have a higher sense of self-entitlement than everyone in your tutorial. Your input really matters to everyone in the tutorial; they will gleam in enlightenment from your views.

These aforementioned tips should get you through your first few weeks at The University of Melbourne without any dramas.

This can act as a foundation of you attaining long-term coolness, such as what we see below.

In other news, check out the blog’s very own Twitter:

https://twitter.com/MelbUniBlog/

Next Post: I haven’t actually decided yet.. so maybe it’s time for a surprise!

Tagged
Feb 20 2012
6 Comments
informational

O-Week!

So after getting some awesome feedback from the FOB series of posts and also stirring up a few people (Which was hilarious to say the least), I decided that I’ll mix things up a bit and attempt to be  helpful and assist the new starters at UoM by giving a bit of a break down about O-Week. The FOB series will continue in the future however, so don’t worry too much! The responses were just priceless!

Now, about O-Week!

Orientation week is a big event for all the freshers, it’s the opportunity to get yourself acquainted with the university atmosphere which you’ll be exposed to for the next few years, and a prime opportunity to meet some people that you could form lasting friendships with.

The week starts off with all the new students being placed in groups with other new students in the same course, and a host leading this group. After completing the usual introductions and ice-breakers you’ll be walking around for a university tour with your group. This is when you can get to know everyone your group on a more personal level. One thing I’d say is that, of course, you’ll be aiming to meet as many people then and there, but don’t feel compelled to be friends with everyone in your host group, the first few weeks of tutorials and lectures are a prime opportunity to make friends. In my case, I can’t remember too many people from O-week anyway, I met most of my university friends in classes, but this is obviously different for everyone.

If you’re one of those students that came from a school where a large number of students attend UoM then you’ll be sweet, you can just hang with your high school group initially, if not, then you can try to put yourself out there and try to join clubs and societies and find like-minded people. I joined a ton of random clubs but never ended up being involved with them too regularly aside from randomly rocking up to their Barbeques on South Lawn sometimes.

There’s a day later in the week, where you can attend barbeques and leech a ton of freebies. This is probably the most useful and fun day during O-week, as you get freebies and obviously get the opportunity to meet some interesting people.  There are also pub crawls and a ton of other social activities around, which you can participate in, if it’s something you’re interested in.

Now, if I remember correctly, during one of the days during O-week, there are subject orientation sessions and also course orientation sessions. These were so useless, I honestly can’t see what you could get out of them since everything said during these sessions are readily available from the subject page on LMS or by just Googling the subject code and finding the subject overview page. If you decide not to attend this you won’t be missing anything. The first lecture of the subject will probably repeat what was said in the orientation anyway.

Next Post: Settling in – The first few weeks!

P.S. – I love the one hilarious person/FOB that attacks my FOB posts over and over again in the comments which I disapprove. This person tries using different names and emails, to get his or her point across, but one thing you might not realise is that I can see IPs and I do know it’s just one bored, and obviously offended person. I honestly can’t help but to smile as I’m making such an impact on one’s life. I feel fulfilled.

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