Spring Classes
Having been at Ohio State for my undergrad, I'm accustomed to the term "winter quarter." So this whole concept of "spring semester" is a little unsettling. Where did winter go?! When I'm trekking across ice and snow to my first day of class, the word "spring" seems a little misleading! Nonetheless, spring semester is upon us, and with that comes new classes for the next seven weeks in the MAcc!
- Accounting Policy & Research w/Professor Zach - this class is already my favorite! We'll be covering several papers and studies on financial accounting and reporting, but we also have the opportunity to create our own event study. Basically, we pick a significant event that we believe would have an impact on stock prices of certain companies. We collect data on historical stock prices and perform an analysis to see if that event actually does have an impact on the stock prices, thereby allowing us to conclude that the event had or released information about the company previously unknown. Some classic examples are earnings and dividend announcements, but my group is getting a little creative. More to come on that later....
- IFRS w/Professor Turner - this class will cover the major concepts of the International Financial Reporting Standards, which are the accounting guidelines used by many countries (although not currently the U.S.). We'll be using a French company's financial statements to learn about different accounting policies throughout the term. Although the class is focused on IFRS, we'll also learn quite a few things about U.S. GAAP that we haven't learned before.
- FFR w/Professor Spires - another audit-related class with Spires is always a good thing! In this class we'll focus specifically on fraudulent financial reporting (FFR), which is perpetrated by management of a company to intentionally misstatement financial reports. Our first day included an activity where we were each asked to perpetrate a fraud involving misstating inventory. The next class, we received our results, and my fraud wasn't caught! I was pretty proud of myself - I have to admit - although I'm not quite sure if that's a good thing...
- Managerial Negotiations w/Professor Dumas - almost every day we get to simulate a business negotiation? Sign me up! I'm really looking forward to improving my negotiation skills and learning how to have difficult conversations with people of higher rank in a business. I consider myself to be a non-confrontational person, so this will give me plenty of opportunities to step outside of my comfort zone and manage difficult situations.
- Tax III w/Professor Raabe - this class will cover more advanced topics related to taxation of corporations. After this class, I'll have covered my entire tax textbook (which I judge to be pretty thick)! Between this and VITA, I'll be getting plenty of tax exposure again this term.
As this term involves plenty of reading and work outside of class, I'll keep this one short! Looking forward to another term at FCOB!