Honours

General

Why consider Honours?

• Essential for a PhD or to pursue a career as a research scientist.
• Develop independent and critical thinking skills.
• Become an expert in your chosen topic area.
• Learn to problem solve from multiple angles. 
• Be recognised for a higher level degree.

The Honours year is very different from your earlier years of study. A key focus is your honours thesis where you will be expected to develop and demonstrate your research skills towards a new contribution in your discipline. You will make your own decisions on the direction and progression of your research, but with encouragement from your supervisor(s) and other academic staff.

Students in the Actuarial Honours track must commence at the beginning of the academic year in February, there are no mid-year intakes.  Students in either the Finance or Statistics Honours tracks may be considered for mid-year entry, so they may commence either in February or July.  See the link below for scholarship information.

Honours Scholarship Information

For domestic students (only), the RSFAS Honours program can be taken full or part time.

See the tabs for the specific Honours track of interest.  If you meet the eligibility requirements you may apply for more than one track, however you can be admitted into only one track.

Contact Honours Convenor: Dr Bronwyn Loong

Finance

Honours in Finance is a program offered within the Research School of Finance, Actuarial Studies and Statistics that offers students who have excelled in their undergraduate studies a challenging but rewarding year of study in finance. We seek outstanding students who are keen to undertake independent finance research with the guidance from academic staff. Past students graduating from the Honours in Finance program have been highly successful in professional practice with jobs in the leading investment banks around the world.

Admission Requirements: 

• A Bachelor degree or equivalent completed within the last two years with 48 units from one of the following majors or equivalent:
  • Capital Markets major
  • Quantitative Finance major
  • Asian Capital Markets major
  • Mathematical Finance major
  • Finance Major

• A weighted average mark equivalent to an ANU 75 per cent calculated from 36 units of courses with highest final marks (i.e. 0.75 EFTSL), excluding 1000-level courses (i.e. introductory undergraduate courses), from one of the majors above. 

• A 1-2 page honours plan (statement of purpose).  Additionally, as part of the statement, please provide a paragraph about your plans after completing your honours degree.

• Note: applications are competitive as the number of places available in the program are subject to supervisory capacity. 

For information about application and notification dates, as well as applying see here.

Examples of recent thesis topics:

'The probability of informed trade in R&D firms before earnings announcements' 

'Corporate governance and the long-term performance of cross-border takeovers: European evidence' 

`Superannuation Funded Income Support: Removing Financial Barriers to Mature Age Retraining' 

'SRI versus conventional funds: A holdings-based analysis' 

'Timing underwritten rights offers and the effects on capital structure'

Actuarial Studies

Honours in Actuarial Studies is a program offered within the Research School of Finance, Actuarial Studies and Statistics that offers students who have excelled in their undergraduate actuarial degree a challenging but rewarding year of study. We seek outstanding students who are keen to undertake independent research with the guidance from academic staff. Sufficiently high grades in the coursework component of the honours year will enable students to receive exemptions from Part II and some Part III requirements of the Actuaries Institute.

Admission Requirements:

A Bachelor of Actuarial Studies degree or equivalent completed within the last two years.

• A weighted average mark equivalent to an ANU 75 per cent calculated from the following 36 units (i.e. 0.75 EFTSL) equivalent to the ANU courses:
  • STAT3004 Stochastic Modelling
  • STAT3032 Survival Models
  • STAT3037 Life Contingencies
  • STAT3038 Actuarial Techniques
  • STAT3035 Risk Theory
  • STAT3036 Credibility Theory 

• A 1-2 page honours plan (statement of purpose).  Additionally, as part of the statement, please provide a paragraph about your plans after completing your honours degree.

• Note: applications are competitive as the number of places available in the program are subject to supervisory capacity. 

For information about application and notification dates, as well as applying see here. 

Examples of recent thesis topics:

'Projecting Australian mortality: The CMI projection model approach'

'Measurement of capital requirement and rate of return in private health insurance' 

'Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for Bayesian time series credibility models' 

'Reforming the age pension: Improving the adequacy of payment distribution' 

'Identifying lapse drivers Australian individual disability income insurance'

Statistics

Honours in Statistics is a program offered within the Research School of Finance, Actuarial Studies and Applied Statistics that offers students who have excelled in their undergraduate studies a challenging but rewarding year of study in statistics. We seek outstanding students who are keen to undertake independent statistical research with the guidance from academic staff. Past students graduating from the Honours in Statistics program have been highly successful in professional practice and a number have progressed to PhD studies.

Admission Requirements: 

• A Bachelor degree or equivalent completed within the last two years with 48 units from one of the following majors or equivalent:
  • Statistics major
  • Quantitative Finance major
  • Mathematical Finance major 

• A weighted average mark equivalent to an ANU 75 per cent calculated from 36 units of courses with highest final marks (i.e. 0.75 EFTSL), excluding 1000-level courses (i.e. introductory undergraduate courses), from one of the majors above. 

• A 1-2 page honours plan (statement of purpose).  Additionally, as part of the statement, please provide a paragraph about your plans after completing your honours degree.

• Note: applications are competitive as the number of places available in the program are subject to supervisory capacity. 

For information about application and notification dates, as well as applying see here.

Examples of recent thesis topics:

`Application of Bayesian Methods in Risk Management for Equity-linked Insurance Policies’ 

'Application of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods in Bayesian Markov switching stochastic volatility models' 

'Asymptotic behaviour of the ruinous jump in the general levy insurance risk model' 

`Modelling High Frequency Data with Long Memory and Structural Change: A-HYEGARCH Model’ 

'The sparse random lasso'