Why do people say NBS is better than NUS biz?

ChocolateCat

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If you are a poly student, i think it's quite smart for you to go SIT instead of Big3 tbh as you are studying it within 2 years with 6 months internship so landing a job with the big 4 consultancy firms isn't that hard. People take 4 years to get a degree , you take 2 to finish and can start your 3 years experience for CA and start taking professional papers already.
By the time the rest graduate you are already almost done.

If after finishing your polytechnic studies you are very sure you want to join this industry, can also consider the Advanced Diploma in Accountancy, which is the fastest route to CA.

I would still strongly recommend getting a degree if you’re not certain on what you want to do though.
 

rodimus_prime

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Am currently an acc student in nus, maybe i can offer some perspective on my part. From what i observed, my friends from ntu acc tend to be aiming to secure a placing in big 4 when they grad. If you are set on going into big 4 then ntu is the way to go, cos the earlier you grad the faster you start accumulating imcrement.

Whereas for nus, my peers and I are mostly aiming to enter banks, corp fin and even IB. I did consider going to ntu but after working in a big 4 before i started uni, i realised that audit was not what i wanted to do, but yet i still wanted a professional degree and this is why i still chose to study acc. The extra year would also provide more time to do internship and build your resume etc. I also know sch mates who secured a job after internship and chose to grad after 3 years in sch.

i do recognise that nus is indeed not the top choice for IB recruitment, but there are a minority of students who made it in. At the end of the day, its not abt the sch bcos the diff between nus ntu and smu is negligible. The most impt thing is your grades and how you make the most of your uni exp to build your resume. And if you are genuinely capable, you'll still end up where you truly belong regardless of which sch you pick.

Thanks for sharing your insights. Your inputs are very helpful.
 

Kyoji83

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Are you trying very hard not to mention the name of SMU?


Am currently an acc student in nus, maybe i can offer some perspective on my part. From what i observed, my friends from ntu acc tend to be aiming to secure a placing in big 4 when they grad. If you are set on going into big 4 then ntu is the way to go, cos the earlier you grad the faster you start accumulating imcrement.

Whereas for nus, my peers and I are mostly aiming to enter banks, corp fin and even IB. I did consider going to ntu but after working in a big 4 before i started uni, i realised that audit was not what i wanted to do, but yet i still wanted a professional degree and this is why i still chose to study acc. The extra year would also provide more time to do internship and build your resume etc. I also know sch mates who secured a job after internship and chose to grad after 3 years in sch.

i do recognise that nus is indeed not the top choice for IB recruitment, but there are a minority of students who made it in. At the end of the day, its not abt the sch bcos the diff between nus ntu and smu is negligible. The most impt thing is your grades and how you make the most of your uni exp to build your resume. And if you are genuinely capable, you'll still end up where you truly belong regardless of which sch you pick.
 

meowyy

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I would recommend NBS accountancy only for 2 things: time and curriculum.

The fact that NBS is the only school that offers 3 year honours degrees and graduates over 1,300 (business + accounting) students every single year speaks a lot. And they have been doing so for over 50 years.

The curriculum at NBS is very rigourous. Many of my friends have been to SMU on a local exchange programme and they agreed that SMU courses are easier. SMU accounting courses do not have bell curve - they are simply moderated. NBS on the other hand has a bell curve, and the median score before applying bell curve can be a D+ for some papers, just to illustrate how crazy hard the papers are.

That being said, NBS does produce many obedient workers who tend to follow the conventional path of audit in the Big 4. With a cohort of 650 students every year (more than NUS + SMU combined), of which over 60% head to the Big 4, it is no wonder that starting salaries are low compared to the other universities whose graduates typically go to banks.

In my opinion, SMU has emerged in recent years as a really innovative school that is able to brand themselves well. There is no doubt that some employers favour SMU grads over NUS and NTU. But also bear in mind that NUS and NTU have a far larger alumni base (and it will only continue to grow since NTU admits twice the number of students in NUS and SMU each year), so I do not feel that either school has a real advantage.

Hence, accountancy wise, I would rank NTU > SMU > NUS
But for business, it would be SMU > NUS > NTU.

TLDR; was offered NUS NTU SMU accountancy and business, chose NTU, recommends NTU, but thinks SMU is pretty good too.
 
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rodimus_prime

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Thanks meowyy for your inputs. What do you make of the revamp that NUS made to their BBA/Acc program in 2017 ?

I’ve read some posts that pretty much agree with what you said above. But some actually think that with the revamp, NUS Acc program now has the edge over NTU for sure and is on par if not better than SMU’s.

Looking at all 3 Acc offers, but leaning towards NUS/SMU. NUS’ proximity to my home is also a consideration. Also, not exactly certain to pursue a career in audit but chose Acc over general BBA just for the added option to specialize in case decide to do so in future.
 
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aaa123

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Thanks meowyy for your inputs. What do you make of the revamp that NUS made to their BBA/Acc program in 2017 ?

I’ve read some posts that pretty much agree with what you said above. But some actually think that with the revamp, NUS Acc program now has the edge over NTU for sure and is on par if not better than SMU’s.

Looking at all 3 Acc offers, but leaning towards NUS/SMU. NUS’ proximity to my home is also a consideration. Also, not exactly certain to pursue a career in audit but chose Acc over general BBA just for the added option to specialize in case decide to do so in future.

The main advantage of NUS acc is that with the extra year and flexibility, you can easily do an extra biz specialisation. And with the revamp you can choose from up to 7 spec, altho not all are useful imo lolol. Most of the ppl i know tend to do an extra spec in finance. Imo this gives you an edge and diversity if you are not sure if audit and acc is what you wanna work in. But then again ntu ddp is similar in this case. However, take note that for ntu biz, your spec selection is based on streaming, meaning that you may end up in a spec that you do not want if your grades are not as good as your peers. But in nus this is not the case, spec selection is free for all. I was offered ntu ddp but i still decided to choose bus cos the S/U system in year 1 helps us to adapt to sch. Plus there is the NOC and alot more other stuff
 

Fearah

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Never regretted choosing NUS Acc over ntu and smu DDP. I get to choose finance or business analytics as my second major without any grade restrictions or cut off, go overseas SEP/NOC trip and enjoy the grade free first year :)
 

Kyoji83

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Actually not much, hahaha...:o

When SMU just start up, they do a lot of branding, marketing and 'networking' to reach today which maybe the reason why their course maybe more expensive than NUS & NTU.


Lol...do offer any perspective you may have on SMU.

Contemplating which of the 3 offers to accept.
 

Kyoji83

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End day, NUS is base on bidding system and you may not what you want regardless if you have godo result or not.


The main advantage of NUS acc is that with the extra year and flexibility, you can easily do an extra biz specialisation. And with the revamp you can choose from up to 7 spec, altho not all are useful imo lolol. Most of the ppl i know tend to do an extra spec in finance. Imo this gives you an edge and diversity if you are not sure if audit and acc is what you wanna work in. But then again ntu ddp is similar in this case. However, take note that for ntu biz, your spec selection is based on streaming, meaning that you may end up in a spec that you do not want if your grades are not as good as your peers. But in nus this is not the case, spec selection is free for all. I was offered ntu ddp but i still decided to choose bus cos the S/U system in year 1 helps us to adapt to sch. Plus there is the NOC and alot more other stuff
 

aaa123

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End day, NUS is base on bidding system and you may not what you want regardless if you have godo result or not.

Err i don't think you truly understand how the bidding system works. It works in such a way that as long as you plan the mods you take properly, you are 100% able to take the specs you want. Of cos, you are unable to do all the popular mods due to the restrictions of points, but with adequate balance and planning you can definitely graduate with specs of your choice.
 
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AngelBurst

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Looking at all 3 Acc offers, but leaning towards NUS/SMU. NUS’ proximity to my home is also a consideration. Also, not exactly certain to pursue a career in audit but chose Acc over general BBA just for the added option to specialize in case decide to do so in future.

Meaning you don't intend to take the Singapore CA Qualification straightaway?
 

KonnieIsland123

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End day, NUS is base on bidding system and you may not what you want regardless if you have godo result or not.

pretty sure it's the opposite...
From what I know, the bidding system is fair to all. So I'm pretty much guaranteed to get my specialisation if I put all points to it. Better than having to compete just to get the specs I want.

I know NTU does this...but how about SMU? Do they use a bidding system as well?
 

Kyoji83

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KonnieIsland123 and aaa123 , care to share your background in term of you are a student or graduate from NUS?

My brother is a NUS graduate. From what he had share, you are given points to bid for module. The system will return you the points at then end of bidding period if you fail to get the module you want. Junior will always have lesser points compare to Senior. When seniors compete with juniors for limited lot, sure some juniors will not get the module you want. Since bidding period is over, you will appeal to 'school coordinator' to get whatever modules which still have vacant lots.

Of course, you can chose not to take rubbish module that you don't like in this term, so you just have to take lesser modules in this term while more modules in next term provided you can get the modules you want and squeeze into NUS regulation of total credits for modules in each term.

This will start to affect your graduation date the more you screw up!


pretty sure it's the opposite...
From what I know, the bidding system is fair to all. So I'm pretty much guaranteed to get my specialisation if I put all points to it. Better than having to compete just to get the specs I want.

I know NTU does this...but how about SMU? Do they use a bidding system as well?


Err i don't think you truly understand how the bidding system works. It works in such a way that as long as you plan the mods you take properly, you are 100% able to take the specs you want. Of cos, you are unable to do all the popular mods due to the restrictions of points, but with adequate balance and planning you can definitely graduate with specs of your choice.
 

aaa123

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KonnieIsland123 and aaa123 , care to share your background in term of you are a student or graduate from NUS?

My brother is a NUS graduate. From what he had share, you are given points to bid for module. The system will return you the points at then end of bidding period if you fail to get the module you want. Junior will always have lesser points compare to Senior. When seniors compete with juniors for limited lot, sure some juniors will not get the module you want. Since bidding period is over, you will appeal to 'school coordinator' to get whatever modules which still have vacant lots.

Of course, you can chose not to take rubbish module that you don't like in this term, so you just have to take lesser modules in this term while more modules in next term provided you can get the modules you want and squeeze into NUS regulation of total credits for modules in each term.

This will start to affect your graduation date the more you screw up!

I am currently an nus student.

Yes, what your bro said is true. Seniors do have more points to bid since they can accumulate it. But either way the juniors will have as many points overtime. And even if they do not have sufficient mods to bid for that mod, there are countless mods for the same specialisation to replace the mods. And I am pretty sure that if you really want a specific mod, you can 100% get it if you plan the bidding properly.

Nonetheless this comes with the sacrifice that you would have lesser points to bid for other mods.

Also, i have never heard of anyone who had to delay graduation bcos they did not get the mod they need to clear for grad. If this really happens i am sure appealing to the office helps. But then again, if someone really ends up in this situation he can only blame himself for lack of awareness and bad planning.

At the end of the day, everyone in the same faculty gets the same no. Of points for bidding. Of cos you can do stuff like module feedbacks to earn more points. Everyone has the freedom to choose what to bid for and i don't see how anyone can be disadvantaged from this. Ultimately, this ensures that all students would have equal chance to take similar no. Of popular modules. Imo this is much fairer than ntu where everyone have to engage in their star wars where modules are allocated on a first come first serve basis.
 

Kyoji83

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My bother was from Electrical and he was unable to get into Power specialization due to overwhelming of applicants. There is no such thing as 'countless mods for the same specialization' (Eg: Silicon Microsystems is under POWER & ENERGY SYSTEMS but totally not related to Power) under and only chose other focus like for 'MICROWAVE & RF' for his specialization.

Planning is one thing but does not mean you will get it 100%. You can use all your points to bid that 1 module but your seniors who have more points can do the same thing and beat you cause they have more points. To add on, you are con-currently bidding for a few modules for specialization too.

So far no one wish to affect their graduation date, so they appeal just to get in whatever opening modules still available. You will never get to appeal to the module you want due to it is already full house (There are unofficial things as 'waiting list' too in case anyone decided not to take up that modules).


I am currently an nus student.

Yes, what your bro said is true. Seniors do have more points to bid since they can accumulate it. But either way the juniors will have as many points overtime. And even if they do not have sufficient mods to bid for that mod, there are countless mods for the same specialisation to replace the mods. And I am pretty sure that if you really want a specific mod, you can 100% get it if you plan the bidding properly.

Nonetheless this comes with the sacrifice that you would have lesser points to bid for other mods.

Also, i have never heard of anyone who had to delay graduation bcos they did not get the mod they need to clear for grad. If this really happens i am sure appealing to the office helps. But then again, if someone really ends up in this situation he can only blame himself for lack of awareness and bad planning.

At the end of the day, everyone in the same faculty gets the same no. Of points for bidding. Of cos you can do stuff like module feedbacks to earn more points. Everyone has the freedom to choose what to bid for and i don't see how anyone can be disadvantaged from this. Ultimately, this ensures that all students would have equal chance to take similar no. Of popular modules. Imo this is much fairer than ntu where everyone have to engage in their star wars where modules are allocated on a first come first serve basis.
 

Fearah

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My bother was from Electrical and he was unable to get into Power specialization due to overwhelming of applicants. There is no such thing as 'countless mods for the same specialization' (Eg: Silicon Microsystems is under POWER & ENERGY SYSTEMS but totally not related to Power) under and only chose other focus like for 'MICROWAVE & RF' for his specialization.

Planning is one thing but does not mean you will get it 100%. You can use all your points to bid that 1 module but your seniors who have more points can do the same thing and beat you cause they have more points. To add on, you are con-currently bidding for a few modules for specialization too.

So far no one wish to affect their graduation date, so they appeal just to get in whatever opening modules still available. You will never get to appeal to the module you want due to it is already full house (There are unofficial things as 'waiting list' too in case anyone decided not to take up that modules).

Speaking as a biz student in nus, most of my us do not have problems bidding for the modules we want (probably because of the vacancies). Further, we can easily map our spec mods overseas. Most of the biz students here have enough points to even specialise up to 2. I guess it can be quite diff for different faculties.
 

aaa123

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My bother was from Electrical and he was unable to get into Power specialization due to overwhelming of applicants. There is no such thing as 'countless mods for the same specialization' (Eg: Silicon Microsystems is under POWER & ENERGY SYSTEMS but totally not related to Power) under and only chose other focus like for 'MICROWAVE & RF' for his specialization.

Planning is one thing but does not mean you will get it 100%. You can use all your points to bid that 1 module but your seniors who have more points can do the same thing and beat you cause they have more points. To add on, you are con-currently bidding for a few modules for specialization too.

So far no one wish to affect their graduation date, so they appeal just to get in whatever opening modules still available. You will never get to appeal to the module you want due to it is already full house (There are unofficial things as 'waiting list' too in case anyone decided not to take up that modules).


I'm speaking from the persepctive on someone from biz sch. This thread is abt biz idk why you brought up your bro from engine. When did he graduate? Im not sure how it works in engine, but a smart guess would be that when demand exceeds supply, the spec allocation will be done based on streaming. Meaning the students with better grades get to pick the spec first.

I'm not sure why you keep harping on the facts that seniors have more points.. wouldn't the juniors themselves have more points to bid for the mods when they become seniors themselves? Either way they would still have equal opportunities to clear the popular modules sooner or later since everyone is allocated the same amt of points overall in the 4 years. To add on, if a student has alr confirmed and entered the spec they would have priority in bidding for the mods in the earlier rounds with lesser points
 

meowyy

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Thanks meowyy for your inputs. What do you make of the revamp that NUS made to their BBA/Acc program in 2017 ?

I’ve read some posts that pretty much agree with what you said above. But some actually think that with the revamp, NUS Acc program now has the edge over NTU for sure and is on par if not better than SMU’s.

Looking at all 3 Acc offers, but leaning towards NUS/SMU. NUS’ proximity to my home is also a consideration. Also, not exactly certain to pursue a career in audit but chose Acc over general BBA just for the added option to specialize in case decide to do so in future.

I think the revamp was long overdue. Both NTU and SMU had analytics programmes since 2015 it took awhile for NUS to catch up but better late than never. Of the 3 new majors only BA is worth considering tbh the other 2 are like.. (seriously business economics?)

That being said, if you want the family culture and hall life I think ntu is a great place, academics aside. NUS is all about that grade free first year (I'm jealous af but it's ok I'm going on 1 year exchange anyway). And maybe the stairs infront of MRB.

NTU will prepare you well for audit/big 4 but if you're looking at corp fin/ib you might want to consider SMU. As for NUS, I think they are generally strong in marketing and finance but not accounting. So it really depends on what your interests are. Good that you chose acc, can't go wrong with a professional degree plus you can do a second spec/major in all 3 unis anyway.

Oh and back to the revamp - SMU now has compulsory overseas requirements! I think if I had to choose in 2018 I would definitely pick SMU.
 

Kyoji83

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For example, there are prerequisite modules during Year 2 & 3 and Juniors are competing with Seniors. So Juniors lose out this year/term and will compete with their junior next year/term.

From my limited understanding, everyone will the same points from the start as Junior but depend on how you bid, you will get lesser points in time to come. For example, Student A bid 10 points, Student B bid 20 points and Student C bid 20 points. Student C is not offer a place and 20 points return to him. Student A and B get into the module and Student A lost 10 points while Student B lost 20 points.

Most BEng (EE) students already confirm what they want for their specialization however I don't think NUS give them priority in bidding for the module in the earlier rounds with lesser points. So all go for same open bidding.


I'm speaking from the persepctive on someone from biz sch. This thread is abt biz idk why you brought up your bro from engine. When did he graduate? Im not sure how it works in engine, but a smart guess would be that when demand exceeds supply, the spec allocation will be done based on streaming. Meaning the students with better grades get to pick the spec first.

I'm not sure why you keep harping on the facts that seniors have more points.. wouldn't the juniors themselves have more points to bid for the mods when they become seniors themselves? Either way they would still have equal opportunities to clear the popular modules sooner or later since everyone is allocated the same amt of points overall in the 4 years. To add on, if a student has alr confirmed and entered the spec they would have priority in bidding for the mods in the earlier rounds with lesser points
 
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