Bachelor of Commerce

A Bachelor of Commerce (abbreviated B.Com. or B.Comm.) is an undergraduate degree in business (or commerce) and related subjects. The degree is also known as Bachelor of Commerce and Administration or BCA. It is predominantly offered in the Commonwealth nations; however, the degree is no longer offered in the United Kingdom.

Structure

Curriculum

Bachelor of Commerce

The Bachelor of Commerce degree is designed to provide a student with a wide range of managerial skills while at the same time, builds competence in a particular area of business studies (see below). Most universities therefore, plan the degree such that in addition to their major, students are exposed to general business principles, taking courses in accounting, finance, business management, human resources, statistics, marketing, economics, information systems. Other established business schools have strengthened their programs by requiring business students to also take introductory calculus at the undergraduate level as part of the degree program. For a comparison with other business degrees, see Business Education.

Honours Bachelor of Commerce

The Honours Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com. (Hons) or B.Comm. (Hons) or H.B.Com. or H.B.Comm.) is a four-year commerce degree in business. It may consist of a four-year program,[1][2] or of a one-year program taken subsequent to a three year Bachelor's degree.[3] The degree requires additional academic courses to be completed with higher academic performance standards and may also require a researched thesis component. The Honours Bachelor of Commerce degree also serves as an abridgement between the undergraduate program and postgraduate programs,[4] including the Master of Commerce (M.Com. or M.Comm.) and the Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees. The subsequent one-year of study is often focused exclusively on a single subject-area.[5][6]

Areas of study

Depending on the institution, a formal academic major may or may not be established. Regardless, a Bachelor of Commerce degree requires students to take the majority of their courses in business-related subjects, namely the following and others depending on a student's particular interests.

Duration

The curriculum generally lasts 3 years in Australia, New Zealand, India, Malta, South Africa, some parts of Canada and Hong Kong. The curriculum requires four years of study in the Republic of Ireland, the majority of Canada, Ghana, the Philippines and the Netherlands. In Nepal, the duration of the program can be three years. In South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and some universities in India, the B.Com. (Hons) degree is considered an additional postgraduate qualification, whereas in Malta, an additional year of study is not considered a postgraduate qualification. In Pakistan, the B.Com. degree lasts two years, the B.Com. (Hons) degree lasts three years and a four-year program leads to the BS (Hons) Commerce degree.

History

See: Birmingham Business School #History and background.

The Bachelor of Commerce degree was first offered at the University of Birmingham. The University's School of Commerce was founded by William Ashley, an Englishman from Oxford University, who was the first Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional History in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Toronto. Ashley left Toronto in 1892 and spent a few years at Harvard University and then went back to England to the new University of Birmingham where he founded the School of Commerce. Ashley began the program which was the forerunner of many other B.Com. degree programs throughout the British Empire. Eighteenth-century economists had divided the English economy into three sectors: agriculture, manufacturing and commerce. Commerce included the transportation, marketing and financing of goods. The Birmingham program in Commerce included economic geography, economic history, general economics, modern languages, and accountancy.

See also

References

  1. ↑ https://www.lakeheadu.ca/academics/departments/business/programs/honours-bachelor-of-commerce
  2. ↑ http://www.uoit.ca/ac-calendar/0506/EN/main/programs/103887/bcom_hons_92.html
  3. ↑ http://sydney.edu.au/courses/Bachelor-of-Commerce-Honours
  4. ↑ http://bcom.unimelb.edu.au/about/honours
  5. ↑ http://www.unisa.ac.za/qualifications/
  6. ↑ http://www.wits.ac.za/academic/clm/sebs/newsebswebsite/postgraduateprogrammes/14711/honours_degree.html
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