UGBA 102A

It’s the night before my financial accounting midterm.  I know for a fact that I am still unsure whether Contra Asset Accounts are Credit or Debit balanced.  I also know for a fact that accounting is the one subject notorious for scaring many business majors.  In my subconscious and false sense of self-confidence, I play chess online until the wee hours of morning (4 AM) with a bowl of cheerios by my side as I reassure myself that tomorrow will be no big deal.  After all, I had reviewed all the homeworks and assignments, and fundamentally all I am doing is glorified adding and subtracting.  What could go wrong?  

I turn in on the most uncomfortable couch I have ever had the misfortune of laying down on.  It’s probably 4:15 AM when I actually fall asleep, peaceful and oblivious to the oncoming disaster.  I wake up at 9:30 AM sharp with to the rays of sunlight seeping through the blinds.  What a beautiful day.  I casually brew my morning coffee as I check my inbox and plan out what I will do before my 1PM midterm.  Then it hits me like a tsunami.  “Instructor Note: Midterm is up!  Good luck” posted 9:29 AM.  Somehow, I was fooled into thinking my midterm was at 1 PM for the last week.  I scramble to my laptop and start my exam, hair still a mess, morning breath lingering, and coffee unconsumed.  I start my exam 14 minutes late, and what do you know, it’s a time-crunch exam.  Needless to say, my performance was pretty sh*t.  

End anecdote.  UGBA 102A is a course dedicated to teaching basic accounting methods and principles.  Taught by Professor Xi Wu, this course is the epitome of “following the rules” and “playing it by the book”.  Much of this course focuses on the three big financial statements (the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement) and their interrelationships.  Also covered by the course are basic finance concepts such as present value, bond valuation, depreciation, and a slew of other introductory topics.  The assignments and exams revolved heavily around being able to identify the accounts affected by a hypothetical transaction and to correctly record said transaction

This course was my first glimpse into the world of finance and accounting, and I must say I appreciated it.  The course and I have a love-hate relationship.  I loved the quantitative aspects, the calculations of net present value, and the different mathematical ways to handle depreciation or inventory depletion.  These were creative mathematical solutions to practical financial problems which I appreciated for both what they were and how they could help me in my own decisions.  I hated the memorization of accounting rules which proved to be the most difficult for me to grasp.  Screw the GAAP and their protocols.  

Altogether, I come away from this course knowing how to read 8-K and 10-K statements to educate my Robinhood moves, and how to not spend all night trying to beat a 2000 rated chess bot before a midterm.