'bess' Degree?

hi i am asking for a friend

is the bess degree at trinity college dublin good for investment banking jobs? is it a respetable degree, as usually buisness degrees at undergraduate are not

Reply 1

el_capitan

Sio

hi i am asking for a friend

is the bess degree at trinity college dublin good for investment banking jobs? is it a respetable degree, as usually buisness degrees at undergraduate are not

What is 'bess'? Never heard of it. You're right, 'business' degrees at undergrad level aren't looked upon favourably, with the exception of a tiny subset. The university itself has its small trickle of grads coming into IBs. As with many, many posts of a similar sort the general advice would be to do a well-known, respected degree which your friend has the best chance of obtaining a 2.1/1st (of course he should enjoy it too!). Couple that with extracurriculars and all the rest of it, it should put your friend in a decent position.

Reply 2

Colly

It's Business, Economics and Sociology or something like that, it's not well known because Trinity are the only place that does it so I doubt if anyone can tell you if its good for IB, further to what el capitan has said.

Reply 3

defiantshrimp

el_capitan

You've never heard of BESS because nobody has a BESS degree. And it is NOT a business degree, though can be. It is a common first year course that allows students in it to do either a Business Studies Degree, a BA in Economics, a BA in Political Science, a BA in Sociology or a joint honours BA in two of the above. Philosophy courses are now offered to second years for the first time this year and I hear that there will soon be a first year course in it. Making it a bit like a PPE of sorts. But at the moment it is best to think of it a common entry for social science degrees (including business in the mix!). There is also an optional extra of business/economics German or French at the moment.

Also I'm aware that Business degrees have a bad rep in the UK but the two best Irish Unis, especially UCD, have large business undergrad programs and the graduates are very sucsessful in many fields. Many top caliber students opt for business degrees over economics degree (shame really :biggrin:

) so it doesn't have the same rep here. I'm not sure of UK employers realize that but what do I care.

As regards IB there are plenty of people who started in BESS that did internships last year in GS, Citi, ML off the top of my head and most of them now have offers for fulltime. All of them (i think) are reading Economics, Business or Economics and Business. As regards the "trickle" the fact of the matter that not many Irish students apply for IB. The banks are keen to get more Irish students in IB since most people haven't a clue about it and when they find out are woefully unprepared for interviews but that is changing.

Reply 4

defiantshrimp

Sio

hi i am asking for a friend

is the bess degree at trinity college dublin good for investment banking jobs? is it a respetable degree, as usually buisness degrees at undergraduate are not

Also I should say, yes it is respectable! And the advantage of Irish 4 year degrees I should say is that you can take it easy in first year, find your bearings and have a lot of fun. And in most courses you can spend third year in another university, Europe if you have the language ability, Asia, America and so on.

Reply 5

clueless101

Im actually considering of applying To Trinity College Dublin for Economics/Economics and Business.

Do you apply through UCAS?

Reply 6

defiantshrimp

clueless101

Im actually considering of applying To Trinity College Dublin for Economics/Economics and Business.

Do you apply through UCAS?

You apply through the CAO (the irish version of UCAS) at http://www.cao.ie/.

It's an easy online application and there are no interviews or personal statements, only A-Level grades will count. The applications begin later then UCAS though and the deadline will be sometime in Feb 2007 i think for entry in 2007.

If you want to study economics and business you would have to apply for the BESS course. If you want to study economics you can either study it through BESS or with another subject (such as geography, germany, history, maths... there are a good few) and then you could major in Econ in 4th year or the other subject or in some cases do a double major.

Reply 7

clueless101

So it could be like a 7th uni choice?

Degrees are 4 years long in Ireland?

Reply 8

defiantshrimp

clueless101

So it could be like a 7th uni choice?

Degrees are 4 years long in Ireland?

All degrees in Trinity are 4 years (with the exception of professional degrees like medicine and dentistry being longer of course) and a lot of degrees in other universities also 4 years.

Yep, it's more like a 7th to 17th choice than just a 7th! The way the CAO works is you list up to 10 different degree courses in ranked order of preference. There is no restriction on the number of courses in one University or anything (so theoretically you could apply for 10 different courses in Trinity). Then when everyone’s results come out in August (or whenever) they calculate the "points" required for every course based on the scores of the applicants who have met the basic matriculation requirements (for example English, maths, etc at GCSE and A-level maths to study maths and so on).

I'm not exactly sure how the A-Levels translate to points but they do! To give you an idea if you take the Irish Leaving certificate your best 6 subjects count (in your case it would be your 4 a-levels) and an A1 (90-100%) counts for a 100 points, an A2(85-90) 90 points, a B1(80-85) 85 points, and it keeps going down in 5 point/percentage intervals. So the maximum points possible is 600 and the second highest 590 and then they count down in 5 point intervals.

Generally the more popular a course is and the higher qualified the candidates, the higher the points for it. You will be offered a place on the highest ranked course on your application that you meet the requirements for. So you will get only one offer. Thus it is very important you rank according to your preference as many idiots here fail to do every year.