On Thursday was my first class in Managerial Accounting. To say that it was OK would be underestimating it. I actually liked it a lot. There were a few factors that contributed to my favorable impression of the class:
- Professor was very sharp and knowledgable. He looks probably younger than he really is, but he is very good about explaining the material and keeping it fresh. He reminded me my professor in Financial Accounting-II. The edge he has over her is that he is not pushing it too fast, so I am able to follow.
- Professor made a few comments in introduction of Managerial Accounting and what was diffirent about it from Financial Accounting that were hitting very close to home for me. First, he stated that Managerial Accounting is not Financial Accounting, and he wanted us to forget everything we had learned in that class. I guess those who teach Financial Accounting want us never to have to learn Managerial Accounting ;-). You don’t have to ask me twice to forget some of the moments of that course, so I got right on board with that
. Second, when he said we would not have to do debits and credits, there was a sigh of relief in the auditorium. Or was it just me?
- The concepts and the subject the Managerial Accounting deals with are familiar to me from Microeconomics and Decision Making courses that I took in fall and loved quite a bit: oportunity cost, fixed and variable costs, sunk costs, incentives, etc.
- The course is based on solving cases that are quite realistic and interesting, if not to say anecdotal. Theye are realistic situations that business managers face in their everyday dealings, including the human factor, not just dry and impersonal lines on the financial statements.
All the positive things above are not to say that it is going to be an easy class, especially for me. But I am genuinely interested in it and that is very important and helpful.
The first half of the class professor made introduction to Managerial Accounting, revealing all those points mentioned above and more. The second half we were going through the solution to the case which was our home assignment for the first class.
The main point of the solution was to show that everything may not be what it seems when you just look at the line on the statement and try to figure out the best course of action from the unsexy numbers provided in the accounting journal. Managerial accounting in my eyes is a way to reconcile, or may be even redeem, those numbers and make them relevant to real life business situations, by integrating them with engineering, marketing, production, human, administrative, and other aspects of business.
Another way to look at it, as was presented in the introductory part of the class, is to remember that Financial Accounting is for external purposes. A sort of “show and tell” directed at outsiders. The Managerial Accounting is for internal purposes, when you use accounting numbers as only one of the many ingredients in making practical decision in real business situations.
We will have to work on a number of cases in groups. The next case is due next class. We already formed our study group of five people. I knew only one person from the fall term in the group. The rest are new for me. A plus is that two group mates are in Accounting Masters program. Hope it will help us all.
On Thursday I had my last class in Fall term. My part-time MBA first term is officially over.
In Business Ethics class we turned in our final research papers. Professor said he will get to grading them next day, so he hoped we will have our grades within a week.
I also got my grade for the Financial Accounting course which I had a final exam for just the day before. This is an example of super efficiency! Turned out I was not nearly that efficient or, rather, effective in that course. Let’s just put it this way: I passed! Given the trouble I had with this course all through the term, I am as happy as I can be. As much as I can be ambitious, I will just take this one and run with it. I believe I will make up for that grade in my two other classes I had this half-term.
Speaking of the time frame for exams grading. There are other examples of instructors taking their time quite liberally in grading exams and a whole course. I had to wait almost a month for my Financial Accounting I final grade. Yesterday I talked with one of my classmates about this, and she mentioned that in one of her classes in the first half-term they received their grades only three days ago. That’s a whopping 7 weeks wait!
That’s why I appreciate quick grading. Especially in my case with Accounting, it would be quite gut-wrenching to wait for that long to see if I even made it through. But I did, and I have a reason to celebrate! And that’s exactly what I am going to do for the next three weeks.
My first term in Professional MBA program at GWSB is just one day shy of conclusion.
I am back from my final exam on Financial Accounting-II. This time I was not nearly as depressed as after my Fin. Accounting-I in the first half-term. It does not mean that I necessarily did any better than that time, but the questions on the exam were making much more sense, and overall exam seemed to be more reasonable in terms of difficulty. Even compared to my Decision Making final two days ago it was more approachable. One of the things that made it easier, at least to some degree, was that it was a multiple choice exam. It almost feels like professor was very hard during the term, but got easier on us for the exam. I do suspect that some of the questions that seemed easy were not in fact that simple, and I fell for the easy and “obvious” answer. I just hope that I got enough of them right to pass the course.
Nevertheless I am done with my finals. The only lingering thing is the research paper that is due at class tomorrow. I am actually writing this post on a break from reviewing that paper for minor editing. After tomorrow I will be free and I will reclaim my holiday season, which had been almost non-existent for me until now because of the classes and preparation for finals. Yeah!
I sure do have a lot of stuff to catch up with: from minor house maintenance, to buying a headlight bulb for my car, to checking younger daughter’s homework, to moving this blog to designated hosting, to reading a book that is not a textbook, to … to … So many things have been put on hold in the last few weeks. I will sure find what to do in the next three class-free weeks.
Yesterday was the last official class of scheduled sessions in my first semester of part-time MBA program. However, since our class in Business Ethics fell on Thanksgiving we are going to have a makeup next Thursday. But it is mostly irrelevant. Our final research paper is due at next class. This is probably the only reason I can forsee people not skipping it. Today we talked about racial discrimination and sexual harrasment in the workplace. It was interesting to observe that ladies in our class were most vocal on the issues. I learned a lot of “interesting” things I have been in blissful ignorance of.
For the research paper I am practically done. The portion I have prepared last weekend covered significant part of the outline we worked out and agreed upon in our group. The other group mate has covered her assigned portion. The third person in the group is going to fill the gaps, if any, which should not be much at all at this point. Her main task is to tie everything together, edit, make it cohesive. Last night in class we confirmed that the ”tie-together” person would pretty much finish the work, using us only if necessary for references. I feel relieved with this, as I need to concentrate on my Decision Making and Financial Accounting final exams.
And that is not going to be easy: on Friday we have a company holiday party in the evening, so this night is gone out of prep schedule. I hope I will be at least capable of doing something the next day. On Wednesday there will be a holiday lunch with co-workers on the client site where I am working right now. It will be the day of my Accounting final. I hope that will not produce much interference, since it’s lunch anyways.
Interestingly, the highlite of both parties is the gift exchange game. The rules of the game are the same, but it is called differently at each place. One is “A White Elephant in the Room”, the other – “Chinese Gift Exchange”. From last year’s experience – it should be fun whichever way you call it.
