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51497 Posts
Might as well rant here as I don't really want to write crap like this on my Facebook/Twitter.
So, as some of you may know, I currently study at UNSW - doing first year Commerce/Arts. I transferred this year after doing well at my previous university for a year. However, there are these two courses that are compulsory - which not only I totally suck at and have completely zero interest and motivation in them - but it seems I'm destined to fail both of them - Introductory Accounting and Business Statistics.
Just to give a background, I completely hate working with numbers and mathematics - unless it's plain simple data entry (I worked at the taxation office for a bit doing this sort of work). Mathematics was my weakest subject in high school so I'm not too shocked that I'm struggling with both of these subjects. Unfortunately for me though, there's no way around skipping these courses - it's too late to drop them without academic penalty, nor think about a internal program transfer (International Relations seems more interesting at the moment - but why does it matter when my WAM is going to tank?).
I went into the Commerce/Arts course thinking - hey, it's business so I wouldn't have to work with that many numbers. I was dearly wrong. I flunked the mid-semesters for both subjects. Thankfully they didn't weigh too much on my final mark, but it seems to be an indication as to where I'll be heading at the end of the semester.
How the hell do I motivate myself to finish this semester on a high note and just pass? The only way I think to pass is by acing the finals for both subjects and any remaining assessments, but the subjects are so dry and boring that I can't get myself to study.
For reference, I'm doing fine in Microeconomics (have done it in high school) and Korean (for obvious reasons). Not only to mention, most of the mathematical concepts in Business Statistics are very foreign to me (which is bad for someone who can't grasp Maths well).
I guess I'll just try and get out of this mojo and work on just passing. While it's going to fuck my WAM up, next semester should be much better for me, with business subjects I actually have interest in (Business Law, Management and Macroeconomics).
 
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Business Statistics can be VERY tiresome if you don't grasp the basics really quickly. The best motivation I can give you is that it is most likely the most relevant class you will take, so doing well in it can help you quite a lot down the line.
I myself am specializing in Business Administration and Information Technology/Information Management. And while the focus is on project management and business enabling through the use of technology, having a basic understanding of statistics helps so much in so many ways.
When it comes to Accounting, just hire someone to teach you. I myself took accounting during my Gymnasium for 3 years (which I guess is kind of like High School). You can't really learn it purely from lectures, I spent a great deal of my time during my 1st semester teaching my friends the subject since they didn't take it before. Accounting is dull yes, but quite useful and obviously means a lot in todays world. (Everyone goes apeshit everytime Apple releases their new quarterly report etc.)
In case you are wondering: 22, Uni student, BSc in BA and IT, soon to begin MSc in BA and Information Management. 3 Business Statistics classes passed, 2 Accounting classes on Uni level as well as dozens of other classes.
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Why would you study commerce while you hate math and anything with numbers? You course is called introductary accounting, i supoose this is just the start.
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On May 13 2013 21:17 GTR wrote:
How the hell do I motivate myself to finish this semester on a high note and just pass? The only way I think to pass is by acing the finals for both subjects and any remaining assessments, but the subjects are so dry and boring that I can't get myself to study.
I would like to know that too. In my case it's not only boring, it's also completely useless for anything other than getting that piece of paper...
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Hey, if the degree is important enough for you to do these courses than do them. If not then switch your programs. I know a lot of people in your situation, myself I did computer science without a passion for math.
For me math isn't hard, i'm not bad at it, its just I'm not motivated to do 2-3rd year math courses.
What I end up doing is hiring a tutor - forcing them to force me to get through it. May you can do the same, sure they're expensive, but you're paying expensive fees for your school and the cost of not graduating is higher. Just think about what you want logically.
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College classes like these are designed to kill parts of your soul so that by the time you reach the workforce, you don't feel as bad about it.
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I just finished taking Business Statistics and Financial Accounting (which I suppose would be equivalent to Introductory Accounting) this semester.
I had previous exposure to stats in high school, which is why I was able to grasp most of the concepts a lot easier and faster than a good portion of my classmates.
For accounting, I spent a good amount of time doing practice problems and preparing financial statements on my own. This practice did wonders for me when it came to the midterms and final. If I were you, I would really do my best to force myself to do practice problems as well as go over lecture notes and the like. I think it's much more difficult to do well by purely memorizing than a combination of memorization and practice.
Also, I was horrific in my math subjects in high school too (geometry and pre-calculus are not my friends to say the least). When I got to college, though, I had to take Calculus my first semester. I knew I would fail miserably if I didn't work my ass off and understand what was being taught, so I did a ton of practice on my own and went to office hours very often. I ended up getting a B+ in calc, which I am very proud of.
Overall, I'm definitely not saying you don't work hard or anything, but I would recommend taking some time to do some extra practice for accounting if you really want to do well on the final because I think it would go a long way for you.
As an aside, I'm taking Micro, Macro, and Law next semester so maybe we can help each other out =D
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Shadow boss has the right solution. You only learn accounting if you practise it a lot. Otherwise it will never make sense.
Understanding the link between a financial statement and a balance sheet and all the transactions being processed.
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United States2822 Posts
Hire a cute tutor girl so you can impress her with your improvement.
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You dislike Math thus don't practice thus you suck at Math resulting into you disliking Math even more. Ad infinitum. Everyone can Math. Just practice. Calculus/Linear algebra/Real analysis seem very interesting to me. I agree that memorization and formula/number plugging(accounting in general) is boring and very dislikeable.
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Motivation is the only truly difficult thing about university... I've struggled with a lot of the same problems for the first couple years of my university experience too, but unfortunately I don't have anything earthshattering to say to you other than yeah, it's going to be shitty. The only thing that makes it doable is knowing that you're working towards something you want to do - no matter how many times you switch programs to something that sounds like it will be more up your alley, university is full of these kinds of courses, and it's going to be impossible for you to get through a year of school without thinking one or two of your courses is totally pointless and nothing but painful, the same way you are now. If you don't learn to survive these courses, you're not going to be able to finish university, and if you know that in four years you're going to be doing something you actually enjoy, it makes them much more bearable.
But whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of thinking you can avoid having to take these kinds of courses - learning to get through this kind of situation is one of the things you absolutely NEED to be able to do to survive any university degree, and you can't dodge it.
As far as how to get through them without failing, that's probably a bit more personal, but like a lot of people have said, a tutor can really work wonders for you - if you find a tutor you like, they can inspire you to perform well on courses that don't mean much to you just because you want to do well for them, so it's definitely worth a shot. I've been tutoring math for the last two years now and sometimes it's not even me doing anything that helps kids, it's just me being there and them having something to prove to someone who's not their math teacher.
Scheduling yourself well can really help too - since you're already halfway through the courses, you have a good idea of how much work is going to be required to complete the rest of the assignments reasonably well, and if you schedule yourself for just a couple hours a time, a few times a week, you'll never have to do those ten-hour days on the weekends that suck your soul completely dry and make you hate everything. I used to be really prone to leaving everything to the last minute (and still am) but I try especially hard with things I know I'm going to hate doing to spread them out so I never have to do that. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, and it isn't, but it can avoid making you feel even worse about something you know is going to suck, and mitigating the pain is important to getting through these kinds of courses.
Also, sort of in the same vein, just your general study habits can sometimes hold you back in these cases - if you're studying something you like, having Facebook open in another tab isn't a huge deal because you don't tab to it THAT often, but if you're working on something you hate, avoiding those kinds of distractions can be really big. While they're hard habits to get out of, things like having the Internet open, listening to music, texting, breaks for food etc... REALLY impact you when you're studying something you hate because you're always looking for distractions. I found those to be way more of a big deal with my chem courses (I fucking HATE chemistry) than I ever did with my programming courses (way more up my alley) - as soon as I start coding I can go for four hours without looking up, but I can't get halfway through a page of a chem textbook without completely losing track of what I'm doing and opening up TL.
That's all I have for now, I have been having similar problems for the last couple years in university and I'm still working on dealing with them so you know, maybe something I said was useful, idk. good luck with your semester, it'll be rough but when you make it through you'll probably be a better student than me 
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TLADT24920 Posts
think of it this way. You have to pass! You have no other option! You just need to motivate yourself. Yes, it's really difficult to get motivated for boring courses but think of it this way: if you study and pass these two courses, you're done. You never have to see them again(I'm assuming that's the case). This means that you never have to study the material again, write tests for them etc... You have to force yourself to do it! Yes, you hate math but don't go in with that mindset. After all, you are trying to learn and more math surely can't be a bad thing? Good luck!
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It wasn't until my 4th year (just finished) that I had motivation issues. I think it was just depression and I think its passing now though.
Intro accounting shouldn't be that hard on paper, its mostly difficult because they try to trick you at every opportunity (I'm an accounting major). Get a tutor for both if you can, its better than re-taking the class. As for biz stats its a useful course if you can actually understand it, I lucked out and had my final replace half my grade and managed a 93 on the final to completely save my grade, and there was no theory, just problems I practiced for over and over.
If you can, swallow your pride and become a regular at your class's office hours. The teacher may like you and give you a bump if they know you are trying.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
Does your commerce major require anymore economics/accounting classes after these 2? If yes, you should switch majors.
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If you're struggling with introductory statistics and the lot then you might as well change majors now or suffer four years of boredom.
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Do NOT even think about doing macroeconomics if you're not into maths. I happen to have my 3rd year macro notes handy on my computer (Usyd) and here is the first bit of a random lecture I opened.
The solution to the above DE is:
y_(t = ) y_(0 )+ aot+∑_(i=1)^t▒ε_i (1)
in this solution y_(t )has a linear trend and a stochastic component . The means of y_(t )and y_(t+s )are y_(0 )+ aot and y_(0 )+ ao(t+s) respectively. The deterministic change in y_(t )after t period accumulation is aot and a permanent stochastic shock. The first difference of y_(t )is stationary.
Perhaps try Political Economy instead? That's like the wishy-washy ideological macroeconomics course for people who don't like maths. Of course, you don't really learn anything particularly useful which you can't pick up just by reading a book or two, but it's still interesting.
To be granted, none of the maths in econ in general is particularly hard. They are perfectly understandable if you bother to listen in lectures and understand the mathematical language - the logical process behind all the stuff you need to know is actually pretty easy. However, if your state of mind is "I completely hate working with numbers and mathematics", then you won't bother to learn the language at all and thus will think everything is actually a lot harder and illogical than it actually is.
Of course, you can try to change your mindset, but that's not exactly such an easy thing to do, especially since it's so late in the semester already. In the mean time, though, I'll give you a hand if you type up any specific questions you have about business stats, especially on the basic conceptual stuff (might be able to help with accounting as well, but don't count on it) when I have time.
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51497 Posts
Does Macroeconomics 1 at all have any difficult maths in it? I thought it was just an introduction and mostly theory (I don't know how it is over at USyd, but I'm assuming its similar to UNSW).
For reference, I'm only doing it because it's part of my 'flexible course' core subjects. Rather do that than Accounting 1B or that introductory finance course. Most of my subjects after year one will be international business/management related, I'm guessing.
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On May 14 2013 23:23 GTR wrote:
Does Macroeconomics 1 at all have any difficult maths in it? I thought it was just an introduction and mostly theory (I don't know how it is over at USyd, but I'm assuming its similar to UNSW).
For reference, I'm only doing it because it's part of my 'flexible course' core subjects. Rather do that than Accounting 1B or that introductory finance course. Most of my subjects after year one will be international business/management related, I'm guessing.
Fair enough. Macro 1 only had maths to illustrate concepts. Graphs and equations and stuff like that - no calculus or regressions. If you understand stuff like working with powers and basic algebraic manipulations then you'll be fine.
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United States33481 Posts
if negativity motivates you, you know where to ask :D
if you're doing okay in intro to micro then you'll be prolly be fine in macro, which is even more conceptual
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On May 14 2013 23:08 Ianuus wrote:
Perhaps try Political Economy instead? That's like the wishy-washy ideological macroeconomics course for people who don't like maths. Of course, you don't really learn anything particularly useful which you can't pick up just by reading a book or two, but it's still interesting.
Poli sci these days is all about quant analysis. Sure there is qualitative analysis, but by far and large, if you're looking to get a job in a think tank (i.e. if you want to use your degree), you're going to at least be minoring in Statistics if not double-majoring in it.
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On May 14 2013 06:37 Cyx. wrote:
Motivation is the only truly difficult thing about university... I've struggled with a lot of the same problems for the first couple years of my university experience too, but unfortunately I don't have anything earthshattering to say to you other than yeah, it's going to be shitty. The only thing that makes it doable is knowing that you're working towards something you want to do - no matter how many times you switch programs to something that sounds like it will be more up your alley, university is full of these kinds of courses, and it's going to be impossible for you to get through a year of school without thinking one or two of your courses is totally pointless and nothing but painful, the same way you are now. If you don't learn to survive these courses, you're not going to be able to finish university, and if you know that in four years you're going to be doing something you actually enjoy, it makes them much more bearable.
But whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of thinking you can avoid having to take these kinds of courses - learning to get through this kind of situation is one of the things you absolutely NEED to be able to do to survive any university degree, and you can't dodge it.
This is right on. Part of the point of universities is to give you an education that is broad in scope. Otherwise, there wouldn't really be much point to undergraduate education. Most of the specific skills you will use in your work you will learn on the job. So even if things you are learning are seemingly not useful, it is the LEARNING PROCESS itself that is useful. This is why med schools dont take students who did bad in organic chemistry. Its not because doctors need to be good in organic chemistry (they really don't...). It is because doing well in organic chemistry is indicative that you can solve complex problems in a system that is initially unfamiliar.
I was a Biology major. I had to take calculus, organic and inorganic chemistry, and physics, none of which directly applies to what I do now (I'm going into biology research as a PhD student), but the learning process changed how my mind works. Every course is valuable, and it can valuable in ways you will never be able to predict. Your job as a student is to get what you can out of your courses, because college is really only going to be as valuable as you make it (beyond just the degree). And that is actually a huge opportunity...
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EPT
