Course + Year: SMU Business and Economics Double Degree Y3
For business, finance is my major while economics is a major itself.
Finance in SMU is actually a very simple major, it sounds intimidating but it’s really not! The kind of maths that you do are plus minus times divide. Due to finance courses being so simple, the bell curve tends to be pretty strong. Whenever I do a module, I always aim for full marks to not be kicked off to the lower grades. The emphasis is on getting every single thing right especially for the core courses which are rather easy. There are electives that are more challenging that are usually taken when you are year 3 or year 4 when the courses get harder. When finding an internship, you would need to be equipped with a strong understanding of all the formulas and even excel work. This is the work that you have to do yourself. The work that you learn in school provides a good foundation but it is not going to be sufficient. I feel that whatever you learn in business school is just a foundation which is not enough to go into a job and know exactly what to do.
For economics, SMU offers it as a Bachelor of Science. However, in NUS and NTU, it is a Bachelor of Arts where the work you do will be more qualitative. In SMU, economics is almost entirely maths and very little qualitative aspects which makes it very different from the work that you do in JC. Be prepared to do a lot of math if you are intending to pursue SMU economics.
I was from JC. My subject combination was BCME. Looking back, I think my thought process was rather immature as I did not really know what I was doing. I knew I wanted to do business at the start by the process of elimination. I didn’t find science interesting and my interests were not in things like teaching, health or engineering. I don’t see myself as a really technical person so I dismissed the choice of computing as well. Hence, business was kind of an obvious choice for me.
The interesting thing is that I only applied to SMU. I received the invitation to apply for SMU before A’ Level results were released. I applied for this early admission process for business school and saw that I could take up a second degree as well. This got me thinking to just take it up and do two degrees for the price of one. I then decided to take up economics as my second degree as I found JC economics to be quite enjoyable and thought maybe university economics will be similar but that is of course, not true.
I received my offer letter quite early, on the day before A Level results were released. At this point, I was quite certain in this direction. Also, I thought that I would enjoy doing group work and work with people. Coupled with the talk that SMU graduates are more vocal and can speak eloquently, I was convinced.
However, I would not recommend applying for only one school. Looking back, it was my lack of maturity and due diligence.
Some people might feel intimidated by the process and feel what they have is insufficient but I would say the process is not as stringent as you might think. Grades are the biggest determinant but just try for sure. Outside of school scholarships, there are also scholarships that come with a bond. However, I believe that you must take into consideration the pros and cons of a bonded scholarship. Some factors to consider can be starting pay and how certain you are in entering this industry. Questions like if the coverage of tuition fees is worth a potential lower starting pay in the long run can be considered. Hence, I would say to be wary when you take up a bond.
There are quite a number of majors in business. Each major is rather specific in what they do but there are some overlaps.
For the first year, you usually do core modules which are more general. These are the modules that train you in class participation and presentation. However, some people might not like it because of the unpredictable grading. I think something to keep in mind when you are in business school is that your results may not be directly correlated to the amount of effort you put into studying. You have to be very consistent in all factors. For example, in SMU, if you do badly in your midterms and get a B- it will be hard to get an A even if you score an A + in finals.
There is this core module called VUCA which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The things that you learn are from weeks after weeks of reading Harvard Business School articles that do not make much sense. There is little application and relevance to daily lives so in my opinion, the actual theory that you are learning is not useful. As a student, I feel there are similar sentiments about it that despite the way the school may package this content, it lacks usefulness and is too theoretical. However, the good thing about the module is that you have 3 presentations. For someone who is entering in Year 1 Semester 1, it is a very good outlet for you to learn how to make good powerpoint slides which is extremely important. The quality of your powerpoint will be under scrutiny and even judgement of other peers. Learning to participate in class with actions such as raising your hands and answering the professor’s question is simple in theory but in actuality, it can be scary. You have to come up with the questions and answers fast and this is definitely a skill you need to train. This is the value of this module which is training you on all these factors.
Talking to the teacher has always been seen as a very loser-ish thing to do throughout secondary school and JC. Other things like asking questions and actively participating in class can seem silly as well. However, in university, you have to do all these if you want to do well. Having a professor like you can also benefit you a lot. For example, if there are a ton of people raising their hand, the professor will call you because the professor likes you. I have seen professors being biased towards students and I feel it can boost your grades. If the professor does not like you then you are dead meat.
There are really so many other factors that will affect your results.
Majority of the modules have lesser emphasis on class participation, group work and powerpoint. Economics is a really different ballgame. I feel that the studying effort to results ratio is more simple and transparent but there is a lot of maths involved. The things that you need to do well to excel in business and economics are quite different.
There are 2 steps to economics studies here. The first is to clear your core modules which revolves around maths for macro and micro economics. It is more academic and more difficult than business even though both are 2 different modes of thinking involved. After you have completed all the core modules, you can start choosing your electives. There is a wide range of electives for you to choose.
However, I feel similar to business, the things that you learn might not be directly applicable to your work in future.
All lessons are seminar based which I feel is a lot more engaging. I compare it to my experience when I went to summer school which was fully lecture-based. That made me really bored. For seminar-based, emphasis is on the class participation and you just feel more alert because you are seated closer to the professor.
Projects are usually research related to answering the professor’s case study. If there are numbers involved, you would put them on an excel sheet and do the relevant calculation. After settling the report cards, you would work on the powerpoint slides and the presentations. Project work is a type of skill set.
I would say don’t really go in with that mindset that you need to be good in math but rather have a mindset that you are going to adapt to whatever situation you are presented with.
However, for economics, you would be able to pick things up faster if you are good at maths. I don’t really believe in the concept of being a “math person” or not. I think as long as you try hard enough it will be possible.
For business, a lot of people think that you have to be very extroverted to excel. Actually, I would say that your performance is not really linked to your personality but rather your willingness to be the type of person that does well in these types of scenarios. For instance, if you are shy and like spending a lot of time alone but you can still learn how to communicate well with your group members for your projects to flow smoothly. You can force yourself to come up with some intelligent comments during class so that the professor will remember you. Being a shy person does not automatically put you at a disadvantage if you have other things to make up for it.
There is no fixed kind of personality a business student should have so you should come in with an open mind. You are coming in to learn and change yourself for the better!
There is a stereotype that an SMU student must be extremely extroverted and vocal, which I think is not true as I have mentioned above.
Also, there is a perception that SMU has a very cut-throat environment. I cannot really debunk this because I am not one to judge whether it is really a cut-throat environment or not since it differs from person to person. I would say it largely depends on the people you surround yourself with in school! There are people who are really nice in school and on the contrary, there are people who can be not so nice. Maybe a better word to use instead of cut-throat would be competitive. Ultimately, you have the choice to live however you want in the school. I have met a few snakes which are usually found more commonly in business school. Actually, they are not really scary but rather annoying. Instead of having your life ruined by them, you might encounter minor inconveniences. For example, a low rating for peer evaluation that might not be a big factor in the final grade. Not scary but irritating!
Coming from a JC, I always had the mentality of a mugger. This meant having the thinking that by doing well in school and course, everything would work out. If my grades were good, I would get the job that I want.
This cannot be further from the truth.
Grades are no longer the determinant in getting an internship. I feel that having bad grades can hurt your chances but having good grades does not mean your chances will be increased in getting a certain internship. Also, the expectation that whatever I learn in school would be whatever I would be using in my job does not hold true. The things you learn in school provides a good foundation but the work you actually do in an internship can be quite different. The things you learn in theory may not be applicable.
For business graduates, there tends to be a heavy emphasis on the high finance roles and consulting. Examples of high finance roles would be investment banking, sales & trading. These are the roles with the most money to be made. I would say try to figure out what you want to do as early as possible so you can start planning for that.
The business degree is already quite general such that everything can be considered business. Things like sales, community management, program management, project management and even product management can be considered under the realm of business.
The internships that students go for are usually dependent on their major. For marketing and communication students, they usually do internships related to marketing, product management or public relations to list a few. For finance students, internships can be at a bank, investment firm or even a Venture Capital. Management consulting is a very competitive field from what I hear.
When it comes to getting a full time job, nothing beats internship experiences. It is especially important to have an internship experience that is related to what you want to do in the future. Things like good grades, leadership, CCA records and volunteering is good to have but all these cannot be compared to having work experience.
If you are still not in university yet, I think you can start with trying to find an internship! Some places you can try are intern.sg or Glints. I would say just look for general business development, marketing and management roles so as to get something on that work experience. Other periods to do your internships can be in the first year summer break as well! Apply to as many as possible!
I personally rank the internships into 3 tiers. The first tier are the internships that are easier to obtain. These types of internships are usually found at small companies and startups.
After getting some kind of general experience, you tend to become more employable. With that you can try to apply for a more specialised role. For finance, this can mean an investment or research role. In your third year summer, you can start applying to roles that you want to do full-time. For instance, at banks where you would want to be converted into a full timer. It gets easier after the first step. Focus on getting that first internship as early as possible!
If you are going to SMU, the objective of your university life will be to get a job so you have to work hard on that front!
JC and university have different kinds of stress.
I think that JC is a lot more overwhelming. However, the stress in JC is something that you can really appreciate after experiencing the stress that university has. In JC, the stress is mainly about the examinations and doing well for As. To me, this is a very safe kind of stress where you know what you are dealing with. You know that you just need to study for As. The stress is probably compounded by the lack of sleep and your current grades. It is a very straight forward stress that can be solved through studying and consulting your teachers.
In university, the stress is really different. There would be stress from groupmates, where a relationship issue might arise. There is always a fine balance between getting things done and not hurting the relationship too much. For example, people don’t like being told what to do so when you have to tell a groupmate to change something there needs to be that balance of the feelings of the other person and optimising the project. I believe this is a form of social stress.
The internship stress is real as well. This is related to an adulting type of stress. In SMU, if you are 6 months from graduation and you do not have a job, you would be panicking. This is because you would be seeing all your friends getting job offers around you. This stress can be quite miserable.
It has become socially mandatory to have an internship during your year 2 summer. Internship applications for year 2 usually start in January. When it comes to February or March, you can see people panicking and being really anxious since they only have 2 months left to find an internship. This feeling can be really scary.
Yes, but they have all been cancelled due to COVID.
There are many different countries to choose from. For example, if you want to go to other countries in Asia, some options are Japan, China and Korea, and within these countries there are choices of about 5 schools or so. There are also many places you can go to in Europe for exchanges as well!
Exchanges are a big part of the university experience. I would say to juniors that if you get the chance and can afford it, do go for exchange! Travelling to a country in Europe can set you back about 20k while you can most likely keep it within 10K if you do an exchange within Asia.
It really depends on what you are looking for in your university life. There are academic clubs and also clubs that have a lot of fun. Clubs that are more fun are those art-sy clubs like Dance, Music Band and those in the performing arts scene. These are the clubs to go for if you are looking for a more exciting university experience.
On the other hand, if your focus is more of building your portfolio, you can go for all the academic clubs. Examples are research clubs, equity fund clubs, business case clubs and more. These are more work related in that sense. A pro in joining these academic clubs would be the advantage when applying for jobs. Academic clubs in SMU is a big thing for sure.
Don’t be intimidated by people in general! There are people who can appear more intimidating but at the end of the day, we are all students. Everyone here is of the same equal rank so there is no need to be intimidated, just because someone is good at a certain thing. Also, there is no need to compare yourself with others! Just focus on yourself!
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the interviewees and do not reflect the official policy or position of any institution. They are also not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, class, individual or organisation.
The information contained in this website is intended to provide general guidance only. It should not be relied upon as professional advice and does not 100% guarantee admission into any course.
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