Aussies Help Me Out!

Off Topic
1

Ok, so Im going to graduate with a BEng(Hons) in Electronic and Communications Engineering this July, I have applied to a number of the top business schools in England for a Masters in Finance, but I would also like to experience studying in Australia.

I’ve researched alot of Aussie uni’s and I liked the courses offered at the University of Sydney, UTS and Macquarie University

However Macquarie Uni only takes people with minimum 2 years work experience, so as I am a fresh graduate that basically rules me out,

So which uni would you recommend - UTS or University of Sydney?

Could any of you tell me about life in general and student life in Sydney, pro’s and cons of both the uni’s mentioned above, their reputation in Australia etc

Any info would be much appreciated!

Cheers

Nik

2

Both of them have an exceptional reputation. University of Sydney has a massive campus and is fairly high end. Most of my friends who went there studied law, business and economics. As your doing a technical degree my understanding would be that UTS would have greater flexibility in courses and what not.

3

Both have a high reputation.

Sydney has a beautiful campus, lots of grass, trees, old buildings.

UTS is a tall, brown building with a bit of concrete on the same block.

I went to UTS for a semester and the location bummed me out somewhat. I also didn’t see any chicks.

4

UTS has fewer pubs and far fewer females than Sydney. Sydney is considered to be the best Uni in Australia so if you can get in, go for it.

5

Cheer’s for the replies guys. I should get into both the uni’s, but as far as my course is concerned as one of you said UTS offers better flexibilty and has a better reputation.

I will consider what you fella’s have said about both the uni’s and make a final decision when the time comes.

Thanks once again for your help.

6

Your forgetting Melbourne. It has The University of Melbourne and Monash University, which are both world renown unis. Also in Sydney, there is UNSW (University of New South Wales) which is up there with all.

However, I would work a couple of years and then study a Masters in Finance. Why do I say this, because I did it. You won’t understand application of what you learn unless you have some in the trenches knowledge under your belt. This is more important that what uni you go to.

7

[quote]tdimaras wrote:
Your forgetting Melbourne. It has The University of Melbourne and Monash University, which are both world renown unis. Also in Sydney, there is UNSW (University of New South Wales) which is up there with all.

However, I would work a couple of years and then study a Masters in Finance. Why do I say this, because I did it. You won’t understand application of what you learn unless you have some in the trenches knowledge under your belt. This is more important that what uni you go to.[/quote]

Yea true I had a look at those, they are definitely good unis. I have alot of mates at monash. I just had lot people recommend UTS and University of Sydney to me thats all, some of them are working with the likes of Citigroup, Morgan Stanley Merrill Lynch etc so thats why I decided to go for one of the two. UTS is also very highly regarded in S.E Asia.

Regarding work experience, I see that you are a credit analyst, hows that going for you? are you working in London?.

The problem is that alot of these big firms get applications from people with Masters from London Business school and other high end universities as I am sure you are aware.

I was shortlisted for an interview with Goldman Sachs and made it to the assessment centre, my competition was a guy with a PhD from MIT, an IIT graduate from Bangalore and a few others with Masters in Economics etc. All of those guys also knew a european language so needless to say I didnt get the job.

I just wasn’t qualified enough. The bloke from Bangalore got the job in the end… graduates from the IIT’s in India are like superhuman they are so ridiculously intelligent its insane!.

So anyway, basically I was advised to do a masters and learn another european language to stand a chance. Also my degree although very numerate isn’t directly related to Finance so that played a part as well.

8

You would only go to UTS for the love of the course. It is the ugliest building in the Sydney CBD and from the few times I have been there doesn’t seem to have much of an atmosphere. However if you do a UTS engineering degree you get A LOT of experience because it is a more practical uni which organises significant amounts of industrial experience.

If you wanted to experience more of the Aussie way of life you would be better off going to Sydney Uni. As others have said it is a beautiful place, and very close to UTS as well.

I did mechanical engineering at UNSW myself so I am biased towards that uni, plus the electrical engineering course there is very good, as a matter of fact the whole engineering department is regarded as top notch.

If you do come to Sydney make sure you find accommodation first. Rental vacancies in the inner city, which is where all 3 unis are, are at an all time low and rents are sky high. Melbourne is cheaper from the housing costs perspective.

Cheers & good luck,

Ben

9

University of Dubbo is the best.

10

Be careful receiving advice off people who dont know what they are talking about!!

I am referring to those who say dont go to UTS because of the ugly building…

All Business courses at UTS are run at either the Markets Campus or at the Kuring-gai Campus just outside of Sydney (25mins). The KG campus is set in bushland and is probably one of the nicest campuses in Australia. The Markets campus is near Chinatown in Sydney and has recently undergone quite a bit of refurbishment. There are a whole two floors of space devoted to Postgraduate Business students.

One final word - the quality of the UTS Finance/Economics courses are top notch. Also UTS is currently hosting the Nobel Prize exhibition (the only Australian University to do so!), and recently had some keynote speeches by Economics nobel laureates.

If you want to know more - PM me

11

[quote]bg100 wrote:
You would only go to UTS for the love of the course. It is the ugliest building in the Sydney CBD and from the few times I have been there doesn’t seem to have much of an atmosphere. However if you do a UTS engineering degree you get A LOT of experience because it is a more practical uni which organises significant amounts of industrial experience.

If you wanted to experience more of the Aussie way of life you would be better off going to Sydney Uni. As others have said it is a beautiful place, and very close to UTS as well.

I did mechanical engineering at UNSW myself so I am biased towards that uni, plus the electrical engineering course there is very good, as a matter of fact the whole engineering department is regarded as top notch.

If you do come to Sydney make sure you find accommodation first. Rental vacancies in the inner city, which is where all 3 unis are, are at an all time low and rents are sky high. Melbourne is cheaper from the housing costs perspective.

Cheers & good luck,

Ben[/quote]

Cheers for the input Ben. This is the sort of information you dont get in the brochures and websites.

Its good to see a fellow engineer on here aswell, I know how hard our degree’s are mate so full respect to you for being an engineer man!

As far as my course is concerned, as said above the Masters in Finance programme at Macquarie is the best but Im not eligible for that so the next best uni’s are UTS and Sydney atleast from what I have been told by people already in the industry.

I have fooled around enough and thoroughly made the most of my undergraduate uni life here in England, so at the end of the day this will now be a postgraduate qualification so Im willing to sacrifice a few pubs and women in order to get the best qualification, so long as it is not too bad.

Regarding accomodation, again cheers for that, I didnt know that either… but I think I will be given uni accomodation? if not, as soon as I get my offer letter I will start looking for accomodation from here itself. The rent should not be a problem as Im going to be paying in pounds and everything is relatively cheaper, even the course is as much as ?7500 cheaper than the ones offered at English uni’s due to the exchange rates, so I’ll be ok on that front.

Any idea how the uni gym is or local gyms in the area… membership fees?

P.S - Congrats on winning the worldcup …AGAIN!, like it was a surprise, I felt that when Jayasuriya and Sangakkara were going at it, they might have had a chance, but in the end you guys were just too good.

I seriously thought, with Vass Murli and Malinga in the team, you might have been in trouble, but Gilly just went mental, I dont think I have ever seen anyone demolish an opposition bowling line up like that!

I’ve was having exams at the time so I couldnt complete my WC thread… so I’ll congratulate you here.

12

[quote]swerven wrote:
Be careful receiving advice off people who dont know what they are talking about!!

I am referring to those who say dont go to UTS because of the ugly building…

All Business courses at UTS are run at either the Markets Campus or at the Kuring-gai Campus just outside of Sydney (25mins). The KG campus is set in bushland and is probably one of the nicest campuses in Australia. The Markets campus is near Chinatown in Sydney and has recently undergone quite a bit of refurbishment. There are a whole two floors of space devoted to Postgraduate Business students.

One final word - the quality of the UTS Finance/Economics courses are top notch. Also UTS is currently hosting the Nobel Prize exhibition (the only Australian University to do so!), and recently had some keynote speeches by Economics nobel laureates.

If you want to know more - PM me[/quote]

Wow, this is better… I’ve heard a lot of con’s from some of the people above so its good to hear some pros.

As far as the ugly building thing, that doesnt really bother me, like I said above… Its the quality of the course and the reputation of the unis.
Since both the unis have equally good reputation then it will come down to the quality of the course and the over all uni life, although I would have to give a bit of an edge to the course, having said that I dont want to not enjoy my university experience in Australia either.

Im aware of the Nobel Prize exhibition, I read about it on the website. Cheers for the Campus information thats really informative.

Are you a current student there?.. like I asked Ben above, any idea how the uni gym/local gyms in the area are… membership fee’s?

I will definitely pm you once I get an offer letter… if I get an offer letter from both then I will obviously have to make a tough decision.

Cheers for your help!

Nik

13

[quote]nik19 wrote:
swerven wrote:
Be careful receiving advice off people who dont know what they are talking about!!

I am referring to those who say dont go to UTS because of the ugly building…

All Business courses at UTS are run at either the Markets Campus or at the Kuring-gai Campus just outside of Sydney (25mins). The KG campus is set in bushland and is probably one of the nicest campuses in Australia. The Markets campus is near Chinatown in Sydney and has recently undergone quite a bit of refurbishment. There are a whole two floors of space devoted to Postgraduate Business students.

One final word - the quality of the UTS Finance/Economics courses are top notch. Also UTS is currently hosting the Nobel Prize exhibition (the only Australian University to do so!), and recently had some keynote speeches by Economics nobel laureates.

If you want to know more - PM me

Wow, this is better… I’ve heard a lot of con’s from some of the people above so its good to hear some pros.

As far as the ugly building thing, that doesnt really bother me, like I said above… Its the quality of the course and the reputation of the unis.
Since both the unis have equally good reputation then it will come down to the quality of the course and the over all uni life, although I would have to give a bit of an edge to the course, having said that I dont want to not enjoy my university experience in Australia either.

Im aware of the Nobel Prize exhibition, I read about it on the website. Cheers for the Campus information thats really informative.

Are you a current student there?.. like I asked Ben above, any idea how the uni gym/local gyms in the area are… membership fee’s?

I will definitely pm you once I get an offer letter… if I get an offer letter from both then I will obviously have to make a tough decision.

Cheers for your help!

Nik
[/quote]

Nik,

I’m sorry I wasn’t reading your original post properly and missed the fact that you are about to do finance and not engineering (being a new dad has scrambled my brains for a little while, lol!).

Swerven was correct about the UTS courses being at the Kuringai campus and not the CBD building. My brother did a business degree there and he’s done alright for himself in the business world, so I can recommend their courses.

If you want to totally focus on your degree then it’s the perfect place as it is a small campus without any of the distractions of a “normal” uni campus. It is locked away in surburbia. One of the drawbacks would be accomodation nearby, the campus is in a suburb called Lindfield, which is one of Sydney’s most expensive. But it is fairly close to some train stations and buses would be run to the campus from there so you could easily live outside of the area and travel.

I don’t know about gyms in that area though. I do know that Sydney uni has a few gyms and if you are a student then fees would be lower, at least they were when I was student back in the 90s.

And don’t worry about all of our comments about the ugly building on the city campus, it’s just a running joke amongst anyone who went to universities other than UTS. However if you do end up seeing it you WILL agree that it is the ugliest building in the area and is not exactly inspiring! Compare it to Sydney Uni’s main building and you will know what I mean.

Cheers,

Ben