University: The University of Western Australia

Postgraduate Degree: Master of Applied Finance

Undergraduate Degree: Bachelor of Commerce, Business Law and Economics

School Subjects: Mathematics Methods, Mathematics Specialist, Chemistry, Physics, English, Economics

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Preface

I want to preface this by saying that this is my version of the BEST ADVICE I WISH I RECEIVED regarding university. I hope EVERYONE leaving Year 12 or about to start university deeply considers what I am advising here. My six rules are listed at the end.

Before writing this blog post, I had some concerns about authenticity and whether my personal TRUTH could really be put on display here. I put off drafting it for a while and just pondered what I would have genuinely liked (and needed) to hear as a 17-year-old coming fresh out of high school.

I don’t want to come off as too ‘preachy,’ and I want to make YOUR decision-making process that much easier when you step out into the ‘real world.’

Therefore, I will separate this simply into two headings:

  1. “My Degrees & Personal Experience”, and
  2. “What I Would Do If I Could Do It Over Again” (I think this is probably the most important).

… Here we go…

Undergraduate

I left high school with a direct pathway to the Juris Doctor (JD) course at UWA. This meant that after completing my undergraduate studies, I had a guaranteed spot for postgraduate law. Looking back, I now cringe a bit at how happy I was to have won an extra three years at university. Regardless, I deep-dived into the Business Law and Economics units I had chosen for my undergraduate studies.

Here are a few things I learned during this undertaking:

Business Law is a content-heavy course and time-consuming to learn. Why? Because you must be able to look at a given scenario, pick out the relevant issues, apply the correct reasoning, and support it with precedent cases. The proof is in the pudding—the ‘pudding’ being the case law you will go over in lectures, which you should have set out clearly and concisely in your notes. Personally, self-made notes are a must-have. Although all the exams in the course are open book, having your own notes means you’ll spend less time navigating a 50-page binder in the exam room and more time dismantling the complex scenario you’ve been given.

The best students I saw had one thing in common: They were great at articulation and didn’t overcomplicate their answers. Because they had practised answering questions throughout the semester and in tutorials, they were well-versed in cases and how to best dismantle the problems/scenarios they were given. Practice was the key, especially as exam questions were often very similar to tutorial ones.

Economics was more so my bread and butter. It was something I had carried over from high school. I especially enjoyed Economics as it’s an area of Commerce that blends mathematics with real-world scenarios.

The coursework varies from unit to unit. I found the lecture slides and in-class questions academically stimulating, and the solutions intuitive. The course pushed chapter readings a lot, but I found that these often distracted from the examinable material.

Economics ultimately guided me towards a Master in Applied Finance, which I personally believe is far more applicable in the job industry.

Masters

After completing undergrad, I started my JD… and dropped out two weeks later.

The JD was like the Business Law course, but I was expecting to come out of university with a more technical, data-driven skillset. I enjoyed Economics—so finance was a natural progression.

The Applied Finance course is hands-on—which I loved. Throughout the course, you frequently navigate Excel for financial modelling, use bespoke software like Bloomberg Terminal (exclusive to the UWA Business School), and conduct group presentations on stocks or hypothetical corporate situations. If you’re unsure about these terms, look them up—you’ll gain a better understanding of what finance is actually about (it’s not just accounting).

So, as you can guess, a Master of Applied Finance requires a solid mathematical foundation, as you’ll explore statistics, Excel automation, and financial analysis (traditional maths, metrics, and financial formulas) used to assess businesses’ cash flows and balances.

As someone currently working in corporate finance, I can confirm that all these skills are precisely what you will be using on the job. The course actually made me more interested in reading the paper, as it helped me get used to the jargon and better understand market dynamics.

This course is taught by some seasoned big shots in the finance industry, and you frequently have the opportunity to meet people working in the field. There are many positives here!

However, there is one glaringly obvious downside—it’s expensive.

A Master’s degree is expensive, especially in a Commerce-related field, as there is a government-backed monetary incentive towards STEM-related degrees. (You will pay more for a finance-related degree because it’s a saturated field).

It’s a trade-off, but not the worst thing in the world.

What Would I Have Done Differently

Short answer: I would have done an undergraduate degree in Finance. Why?

THIS BELOW IS REALLY IMPORTANT!!!

This is all well and good, but how do YOU know what YOU want to do?

After all, it took me years before I discovered Finance—how can you know what you want without committing all that time and money?

Easy. Do this:

  1. Choose something you are good at and genuinely interested in. (Obvious, but I had to include it).
  2. Do ONLY one or two units in your first semester. Try the core units of a major and see if you actually like them. Then decide if you want to commit to it for the full duration of the degree.
  3. Use your first semester to join clubs and speak to people. Learn from their experiences to see what career you want to end up in and what degree helped them the most. For me personally, SMIF (Student Managed Investment Fund at UWA) helped me meet people and fall in love with Finance in a way that never would have happened otherwise. I can’t stress this enough—there is a club out there waiting for you.
  4. Decide on a career before you decide on a degree. This is a hard one to pull off, but it makes your pathway that much easier.
  5. If you’re unsure, know that STEM degrees (Mathematics, Statistics, Software, Engineering, Chemistry, etc.) are significant assets on your CV that recruiters look upon VERY favourably. On the flip side, these degrees are subjectively ‘harder’ than non-STEM ones.

Final Thoughts

  1. Don’t chase the money. I can’t really explain this one—you just have to trust me. You will never out-earn the person who does it for the love of it; they will pass you in the long run.

Use your time at university to find something you love and run with it. Do it until you no longer feel the same about it, but never stop searching. It may not even be a degree—it may be a hobby, an activity after work/uni, a person. At the end of the day, university is just one season in a long saga, which we all hope is a story of happiness and self-fulfilment. I hope that whatever you choose for yourself truly reflects what you want out of your life. Reach out to people—we are all in it together. I hope to see you around.