Adv Seminar in Accounting Ending, Review and Grade

I took this class in the Summer of 2011, this is an Accounting Elective.

This class was my third to date with Debby Turner, after Financial and Managerial Accounting and International Accounting. I have a great idea of what to expect from her courses. Let me say that this wasn’t a typical accounting class, there weren’t debits and credits or really any sort of basic math. Finally in the MBA program we talked about some of the recent (past couple decades) of “accounting failures”. We analyzed if these were indeed accounting failures or if they were actually ethical dilemmas and legal issues. Hint: They weren’t accounting failures. The format was pretty simple, there were only about 20 students in the class so Class Participation was expected and represented a portion of the final grade. There were weekly assignments that needed to be turned in for a grade and a final exam that tied the course together. All that was really required was to read in advanced and answer the questions assigned as homework, and participate in the class.

We spent about four weeks on Enron and what exactly happened and how they failed; really interesting stuff honestly. We analyzed the legal ramifications of mark to market accounting and what exactly happened at Enron leading up to the resignation of Jeff Skilling and the eventual “death” of Ken Lay. We read and discussed WorldCom and HealthSouth, exactly what happened to each company. We hit on the causes and legal ramifications of the failures in congress.

We learned more about Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank acts and exactly what they mean to companies around the United States. There was so much information in this course that really bridged the gap for those of us who don’t really know all the details of these frauds and company failures. I highly recommend this class, whether you are accounting or finance savvy or not. I learned quite a bit about the world of accounting, and little about how to detect the possible frauds just by looking at the financials. I give the class information and format as well as the professor a solid “A”. I got an “A”.