Course + Year: NUS BBA (Accountancy) Y2
I went to JC. In JC, I studied BCME! I liked Economics the most since you need to apply it to real-life situations. For me, it matters to me if I’m able to apply what I study, so I can add value to whatever I’m studying by deriving insights.
I quite liked Chemistry as well, but I really, really couldn’t see myself pursuing a career in Chemistry—like what if I work in a lab and then I can’t produce the results? Later they retract funding for my research project… Alright, I’m just kidding. Please don’t let that stop you from doing Chemistry – I just knew that being a scientist just really wasn’t for me, you know?
When I had to decide, I was considering studying Economics in UK universities, and in Singapore, I think I was leaning towards Accounting and Business courses. This was just my personal opinion, but I thought that the nature of the Economics course in Singapore was slightly more geared towards the qualitative side, and I wanted to study Economics that was more quantitative, with equations, models and formulas. (That’s not to say that NUS Economics is only qualitative, though; it has a mix of both!)
Part of the reason why I picked Accounting and Business was because I believe that an Accounting degree can provide quite a good safety net. Everyone needs an accountant or an auditor, so there’s some kind of job security especially in this period of uncertainty.
Unlike the general business course, accountancy has a very structured programme. It’s an accredited programme, which means it’s considered a professional degree! As such, it can be very compact as there are some modules that should be done over a longer time frame (1.5 semesters) that are now squeezed to fit within a semester (half a year). Furthermore, since the course is structured with a very fixed curriculum, this also means that there is less flexibility for you to customise your study plan if you want to graduate on time without overworking yourself.
You can do modules outside your course – but note that for accounting, you don’t have many unrestricted electives outside of your course for accounting because you have quite a lot of content to cover so do choose wisely in what you want to explore or risk over committing yourself especially if you are not confident/do not have a good CAP-based where you can absorb a few lower grades.
For the first year, it is more focused on the basics of business. During this time, you are exposed to different elements of business. This includes (and isn’t limited to) marketing, management, business law, economics (microeconomics in particular), data analytics and accounting. This exposes you to the university lifestyle, helps you to understand the people you will be studying alongside and gives you time to develop an effective study method.
After the first year, things get more technical as you will be taking more specialised and in-depth modules such as finance, corporate accounting, managerial accounting, Python programming to visualise data, consumer behaviour (for marketing), etc. Due to the new system, if you are in a course with specialisations available, you have to declare the academic route you want to embark on. This gives you priority for modules that are requirements for that route, confirming your place in those modules.
Note that accountancy is a specialisation on it’s own, but you can’t join it halfway.
The basic accounting module is more rule-based, where you need to know how to deal with certain accounting items. While it is important to understand and question the “why”, it is often neglected. This makes the module relatively straightforward as it is like taking a math paper in JC where you identify the kind of question it is and proceed on to apply the required steps/accounting treatment to help you reach the correct final answer.
Within one module, you might have people from different years, but higher years tend to get more priority (and sometimes you feel like you have to compete against them) but that’s usually for higher-level modules that you take if you hope to gain a competitive advantage in earlier years.
If you think accounting’s all math, we do have modules from economics, to programming, to law. For example, we have law modules that centre around corporate law/governance, and they tend to be more qualitative and require a lot more explanation.
Generally, accounting is a good mix of qualitative and quantitative modules and subjects, but you must be comfortable with numbers, because you’re going to see a lot of numbers! In the end when you go to work, it’ll ultimately be a lot of quantitative work, but the qualitative part comes into play to explain the concepts behind how all the quantitative methods work. That said, I do feel that accounting gives you a very good understanding of the different elements in finance such as I am confident enough to comment on tax matters, audit matters or even corporate accounting matters.
My modules are half a year. For NUS, the number of modules you have is dependent on the load of the module.
Excluding Medicine, Nursing, Music and Dentistry and Law, NUS requires you to take 18 modular credits in one semester: most modules are 4, but the number of credits can vary, and you might end up with modules that are 2 units or modules with 8 units or even 6 for lab-based modules for science courses. That’s about 5 modules a week, and one module would be an average of about 3 hours.
The structure of the module varies. Generally, there are:
Business modules for me are usually seminars that can last for 3 hours long, while for other modules, you can have 2 hours of lecture and 1 hour of tutorial. Your timetable will depend on the modules you take – the earliest class is usually 8-8.30am, while there are also night classes that are from 6-8pm. You’ve definitely a lot more flexibility in university: it’s possible for you to overload during a semester and take more mods, and it’s also possible to work in an internship as well (but there are not many worthy part-time internships). I would say that university was more stressful for me than JC.
Other than the regular modules, I get to meet people from other courses during electives. So how it works is that you must do 5 general education modules as part of your graduating requirements.
There’s Qualitative Reasoning – you do this either with the people you stay with in halls, or you do it with people from other faculties. It’s more of statistics; it’s the type of module where you need to memorise the formulas. Finals are relatively easy as it is in the MCQ format, and you need to answer about 30 questions in 2 hour: so it really boils down to how well you know the concepts and when to apply them.
There’s also a module called Questioning. This module isn’t graded, but you’ve work to do. It’s basically about asking questions, ranging across topics like Philosophy, Physics, and Economics.
There’s a module on History. For me, I studied the history of theatre which is cool but not very useful in helping to improve my grades as it is a very uncertain module.
There’s also this Thinking module, which is a bit like a philosophy module—like what it means to think like an Economist, stuff like that. Quite meta.
Lastly, there’s this Singapore module, which is all about Singapore: Singapore history, plants in Singapore, that kind of thing. But if you stay in RC, all of these modules will be replaced by other modules (except for qualitative reasoning)!
University is kind of different from JC, in the sense that everything is cumulative and you need to work hard the entire time. I think it’s a bit more similar to Poly in terms of how grades are cumulative.
As for exams, I think midterms really are the best, though – it’s mostly MCQ with a few structured answers, and MCQ is the easiest! Finals are a bit more difficult: for NUS Accounting finals, we need to draw tables, do your work and explain your answers. Sometimes you need to use the computer to do the exam too, and many of our exams are very long, lasting for about 2 to 3 hours.
The weightage of the exams depends on your professor, and this is very unpredictable because every semester you’ll more or less end up changing professors. However, based on my observation, the weightage of finals for business modules is usually about 30-35% while they range from 50-60% for accounting modules.
Generally, most of your professors are part time, and they may not be professional teachers/professors! There are two main implications to this. The first is that they do not really know how to teach and impart the knowledge to you in such a way that you can understand it easily. The second is that imparting knowledge to you isn’t their main concern as teaching is more of their side-hustle/retirement job. As such, university requires a lot more independent learning to ensure that you are well-versed with the topics and on task with school work
That said, there are some professors who are really passionate and really do care about teaching you, making sure you understand the content well, which makes studying under them a breeze or even enjoyable. As with all schools and courses, it depends.
Personally, I feel that higher level accounting modules are very challenging as they often require you to apply concepts and content from earlier modules more often and with a greater depth as compared to other courses. I believe this is a challenge faced by most professional degrees like law and medicine as content is often interrelated, while this might be less true as compared to other specialisations like marketing where every module will analyse a different aspect of the subject. For example, a course like Advanced Corporate Accounting (taken in year 3) will require you to apply concepts from Corporate Accounting I (taken in year 1) and Corporate Accounting II (taken in year 2). As such, you will need to be constantly well-versed with the content which can be difficult due to a lack of practice or even misconceptions that you already had from the start.
Furthermore, another challenge in accounting modules is that they can be very content-heavy and have very limited practice available. That can be very off-putting sometimes, as countless hours are spent revising and reading and sometimes only bits of knowledge are retained. One example would be Managerial Accounting (strategy-based accounting used by companies in making decisions or accurately reflecting internal sales). It’s more conceptual, and the examples analysed in class are very low-level. But when it comes to exams, the concepts tested end up medium to high difficulty level! There are also modules such as Audit, where it is more judgement-based. This makes it difficult to practice as there is room for different interpretation as the accounting standards were drafted in such a way. As such, one way to determine if you will get a good grade is depending on how much the professor likes you as it will shift CA marks to your favour which can help to give an edge over a rather normalised final exam score. But there are some exemptions: for taxation, there is more practice available in the form of textbooks/workbooks (although not prescribed by the professor) since it is a rule-based module. You just need to understand and know what steps to take when approaching a particular question.
I feel that the bell curve is really very steep and it’s quite hard to get A because the bell curve is quite tough to beat and it is very competitive because you’re consistently competing within your course… You tend to feel like you have to be better than the next person because you’re being compared within your class/within the course. The results depend on the bell curve, sometimes within your class, and sometimes within your cohort—and I think the bell curve in accountancy might be tougher than the bell curve in business. This is because the accounting cohort is filled with a higher proportion of smart people (with rank points ranging from 85-90) while for business, you will be competing with people with rank points ranging from 78-90. One thing you will have to get used to in university is that most of the time, you will not be able to get the correct answer, and that is okay because the professor has built in ways to give you method marks or to moderate the entire cohort’s performance accordingly for grading by bell curve. This means that if everyone is unable to do the questions but you are able to do a few more questions correctly than the rest, it is very likely for you to get an A or A+”. But of course, the converse is also true.
The biggest myth about accounting was that it’s actually not as mathematical as you might expect—I expected there to be a lot more math when I first joined. I thought that I would need to do some complicated mathematical manipulation. In actual fact, I ended up doing a lot of plus and minus; it’s more of basic math and I barely touch the complicated mathematical concepts (there’s not much calculus). However, it’s definitely good to be comfortable with numbers, so you don’t get intimidated by your balance sheets which are often in the thousands or even in the millions. You need to know what numbers are important and what to do with the numbers.
for accounting, and becoming more familiar with a lot of these laws and concepts that are agreed upon for these international standards. Often, it’s not so clear-cut, and it’s up to you to know how using different methods might affect the results. This requires a lot of professional judgment which can be ironic as students often lack the experience to even form some kind of opinion. One piece of advice I would give is to do a lot of internships! It’s quite easy for accounting students, because you can really do anything apart from business analytics (unless you are well-versed in one of those programming languages used in business such as python, R or VBA).
think accounting can be a bit technical, and so it really may not be for everyone—but you really feel satisfied when you see your spreadsheet all filled (especially since sometimes there are unexplained blanks, and you’ve no idea why the blanks are there). The subject is very content heavy—it’s definitely better if you understand, because if you don’t understand the concepts, then you’ll end up just memorising for the sake of academic purposes alone (and this is true for all subjects!). As you approach the working world, do ask and clarify these doubts as it may bite you in the future.
For accounting, most of us are aiming to become auditors or tax consultants; but in addition to that, you can also do business jobs or finance jobs. If you know programming, you can program a system to do the accounting or even just do programming entirely.
As such, accounting is really versatile and you definitely will get a relatively good job upon graduation without much worry. No one from accounting, as far as I know, seems to be unable to secure a full-time job even in the current COVID-19 situation as many have been offered priority offers as early as Year 2 like myself. Internships, on the other hand, is a different matter: it depends on the job and the company policy but shouldn’t be too difficult. There are many jobs available and you can check with me or your seniors if you need some advice.
One thing to note though: if you study business in Singapore, the knowledge tends to be more transferable; however, if you study accounting in Singapore, the knowledge may not be as transferable to jobs in other countries because you’re learning standards mostly used in Singapore (e.g. Singapore’s tax laws). However, as Singapore’s laws are heavily modelled after UK’s laws, it shouldn’t be too difficult for you to adapt to a job in the UK.
My dream job would be to work in a bank, but I’m not sure yet. I think getting a job in a bank is comparatively more challenging, let’s say as compared to getting a job as an auditor, simply because of the high demand for bank jobs (especially for the more popular positions: IB, S&T, etc.) and a strong pool of competitors.
Furthermore, bank jobs are more volatile and are frequently cut in times of crisis, especially the higher paying ones.
NUS Business School has an excellent career portal that surpasses many faculties’ career portals. If a company is well-established enough, the school will also publicise some roles on the career portal! However, the companies in the portal may not be very good for freshmen who lack experience or good grades. As such, there are many other ways that seniors will use to secure their internships: but that’s dependent on the kind of role and industry you are trying to break into.
In year 2, I got an auditing internship with one of the Big 4s with relative ease as they hired about 200 interns (but the pay was not high!). This internship was self-sourced as I knew which company I was looking for and roughly the type of role that could add the most value to me (i.e. doing accounting roles in an accounting firm or doing marketing roles in a marketing firm). For me, since I’m not super interested in auditing, I see auditing internships as more of a safety net if I can’t find other more competitive internships that I’m personally more interested in. In addition to that, I use it to gain invaluable experiences to gain an edge in school or to secure my next internship. The company I interned at actually gives you higher pay whenever you return for another internship which is quite good and it has a good brand name.
Studying in university is more concept-based: you learn more theories. As for accounting internships, they tend to be more application-based or administrative especially because you don’t have the degree yet! So you just do a lot of copying and pasting numbers. Just try to listen and talk more with the full timers so that they can get to know you better, building their trust in you so that they are more confident of giving you more advanced work that other interns would not get. Don’t be disheartened by the mundane nature of the work but rather use the opportunity to gain an exposure of different activities no matter how mundane they sound. It is always better to know how to do 5 different mundane tasks than spending your time mastering one mundane task.
I joined a lot of stuff. I joined the Student Union (which is a bit like Student Council), where we plan events. Do you know SUNNUS? I helped to plan that last year! I also joined the Investment club, and I’m hoping it’ll help me in getting a job. If the AI sweeps my resume, hopefully it dings when it sees Investment Club? I don’t know but it works as many companies are using AI to sweep resumes for keywords relevant to the role.
I stay in hall, and in Hall you’ll have to clock points, and usually you have to join about 4 CCAs to stay? Sports, Performing arts, volunteer work and so on. It really depends on your hall, though.
In year one, I stayed in Prince George Hall. I really like the people, and it’s really fun if your friends are inside. For accommodation, there are halls and RCs (residential colleges). RCs are more academic, and you need to do the mods unless you’re from Law or Med; but for halls, you need to take part in activities to get points and stay.
To be comfortable in the course, you need to be okay with looking at and handling large numbers for the more quantitative modules, and you have to be able to explain concepts for the more qualitative modules. The students who are really really good have both qualitative and quantitative skills.
In terms of interest, I’ve found Accountancy quite interesting and I quite like it especially since it equipped me with professional skills that will be difficult for others to obtain if they are not accounting trained! For grades, however, if you really really want top grades, you’ll really have to put in the effort. It is not difficult to get a decent grade in my opinion.
Furthermore, if you have a scholarship, it is highly unlikely for you to lose it as long as you work consistently or somehow manage to become very productive towards the end. The NUS scholarship is one of the more highly competitive ones that is harder to secure as it is bond-free. However, you can prepare yourself mentally for the assessments. The first is a general affairs quiz which is quite low in weightage. The second is more of a case presentation and discussion where you present an allocated section in 1 minute and discuss with your fellow interviewees accordingly to the case for about 15-20minutes based on questions given in the case. In my opinion, the case discussion is the part where you make it or break it and it determines the tier you get or whether or not you even get the scholarship. My advice is to listen, be respectful and give constructive/insightful comments or ask meaningful questions. Don’t need to hog the spotlight as the things you say can be used against you as well so measure the risk-reward ratio accordingly. Do take initiatives if you can but don’t need to be too tryhard (i.e. if you are nearer to the whiteboard, can volunteer to help consolidate the points).
Honestly though, don’t be too stressed up by your grades like I was. Go and enjoy life a bit, have fun and try different things. If you can, try to start finding internships early or talk to seniors as they often have connections to share with you. It definitely won’t be easy for freshmen, but it’s not impossible and any experience can be useful in the future. Pretty sure no one really knew how useful programming would be when it was first created, but now it is high in demand everywhere! That said, it’s just an example and there are still many jobs out there. Just manage your expectations accordingly and enjoy the process. DON’T give up on yourself and just trust in the process!
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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