Friday 26 June 2020

Past the half-way mark in my Master of Financial Planning studies

The uni results for the course I studied in Q2 (Planning for Retirement) came out this morning. I got a Distinction (77%) for the subject, which was quite surprising given that a) the weekly course modules online were very brief (30 minute read each) and simply provided guidance as to which chapters of the prescribed textbook were supposed to be read (I never got around to reading the textbook at all), and b) although I got 80% for the first assignment and around 85% in the exam, I only got 11/20 for the second assignment (a two page essay that I thought was quite good - but although I got high marks for style, grammar, structure and referencing, I got practically no marks for 'content' (worth half the marks) simply because the lecturer decided I didn't answer the question in the rigid essay structure she wanted). Having written lots of uni essays during the past 40 years of doing undergraduate and post grad courses (and always getting pretty decent marks) I felt this was a total rip-off. Fortunately it turned out that because the essay was only worth 20% of the overall course mark, I would have needed to get 19/20 or full marks to get 85%+ and a High Distinction for the subject. So essentially it didn't matter that I only got 55% for the essay.

Due to courses being completely online (including the online final exams, invigilated using ProctorU) the uni has offered students the choice of replacing their graded result this semester with a simple Pass/Fail result that won't be included in their overall GPA calculation. Since I managed to get a Distinction (6.0) for this subject I don't need to exclude the result from my GPA calculation (I need to get a GPA of 6.0 or more to graduate 'with distinction'), but I would have liked to be able to replace the Credit (5.0) I got last semester (Q1). I'm not sure why they haven't offered the Pass/Fail option for Q1 results as the final exam for Q1 was in March, just when the Covid-19 changes were being introduced and causing maximum disruption. I've emailed student services to double check if Q1 result can be replaced with the simple Pass/Fail outcome, but I don't hold out much hope.

If my Q1 result stands, my current GPA is just under 6.0, so I'll need to average Distinction for the remaining five subjects and get at least one High Distinction to bring my GPA back up to 6.0. This coming semester I'm doing 'Funds Management and Portfolio Selection' which should be interesting and quite easy to get an HD. And the final two subjects are 'research' projects, so should be able to get HDs if I put in enough work. We'll see how it goes.

I also have to finish off a couple of 'specialist' courses (in Margin Lending and Self-Managed Superannuation Funds) I'm enrolled in at an RTO and have nearly completed, plus do the four courses for the Advanced Diploma of Financial Planning I'm also enrolled in at that RTO. So it will be quite busy for the rest of 2020.

Once I finish off the MFP degree in mid-2021 I want to enroll in a PhD in Financial Planning (should be a lot easier than the astrophysics PhD I was enrolled in a few years ago). I'm slowly browsing through PhD theses in Financial Planning to try to get an idea of what research topic I might want to pursue. I'll have to start sounding out prospective supervisors at the uni early next year, and be ready to put in my application by the start of my final semester. 

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