Last Day of Class

Yes, that's right. Today is my last day of classes, ever, at least as an undergrad. I am busy finishing up a few last assignments to turn in, nothing too crazy. The VITA Tax office has wrapped up; all told we prepared 175 returns, with just a handful of rejected returns, all of which were corrected and re-filed. We'll be having an end-of-tax-season party tomorrow afternoon, the treat of the professor! After that, I have two final exams on Monday...and then, that is IT!

Woo- Hoo!

Now comes the hard part: finding an employer to hire me and a graduate program to accept me. I am confident that neither will be that big of a problem, but, I am also realistic and expect to have some rejections. I've already discovered the hard way that, unfortunately, I am not considered "Big-4 Accounting Firm" or "Goldman Sachs ultra-corporate" material. Nor do I have the grades to simply step into something awesome like the PhD programs at the local University - did you know that not only are they waiving 100% of tuition and fees for Doctoral Candidates, they are also paying them $20,000 a year? Crazy! But, alas, such heights are not for me I suppose...not yet.

Those worries are at least a little while further out the future, for now, so I'll focus on finishing those assignments, going to class for the last time, and studying for my finals. Wish me luck!

Taxes

They say there are only two constants in life: Death and Taxes!

While I do know a thing or two about death, I know a whole lot about taxes. I ending up taking the 'Personal Income Taxation' class at school twice; the first time through was my first semester after finishing junior college and while my test scores had me set to get a 'B' in the class, I slacked off on a final assignment which caused me to fail. So after a couple of years, I took the class again last semester and scored a solid A- and was regarded by my classmates as the student who best understood the complex issues and concepts of taxation.

So this semester, I signed up for the IRS' Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, a free tax return preparation service offered by the IRS to help so-called low income taxpayers to get their taxes done. I volunteered myself and was confirmed by my classmates as the 'Site Coordinator' for the VITA office we set up at our college. So while I have actually prepared the least number of returns out of all the students working in the office, I still probably have the best overall understanding of the myriad different deductions, credits, forms, and procedures involved in filing a tax return.

Now I need to get my own tax return filed. This is the last week our site will be open, and while I didn't have enough income in 2011 to have to file (oh the life of a starving student), I did have a good chunk of tax withheld that I will be able to get refunded.

So...I've got the taxes pretty well figured out...but this death business, well, I'm not so sure about that!

Oh Well

Goldman Sachs called me this morning to inform me that I would be unable to "continue the interview process". I asked if they could tell what influenced their decision, to which they replied "we don't provide any feedback."

So...yeaaah....

The End is Nigh

I am nearing completion of my bachelor's degree. This semester is essentially over, and I have only one class to take next semester. I interviewed yesterday at Goldman Sachs for a two-year, guaranteed 20-hour-a-week internship, perfect for some income and experience while working on a master's program.

*Fingers crossed*

I was the best dressed person there; far and away beyond the other applicants and awkwardly outdoing all four different interviewers. Rocking the solid gray suit, the big red power tie, and a crisp white cotton pocket square.

If only their hiring decisions could be based solely on style and poise...

Things I Like: Accounting

I am in the second semester of my junior year as an accounting major, and I after some recent reflection, I'd like to reaffirm my happiness with my selection. Textbooks often refer to accounting as "the language of business", and I think that as a well-established scientific system, it also functions as the rules of business. Knowing the rules enables one to effectively play the game.

When my enlistment in the Marine Corps ended several years ago, I knew that I wanted to do something in business. I had come to this realization when it occurred to me that every job out there belongs to some kind of business. Further, almost everything in life functions like a business, at least on some level or in certain ways. I was pretty ignorant when I started college, and without a lot of direction; "business" is, like I've said, broad and far-reaching. So those first few classes definitely informed my choice, one of which happened to be Financial Accounting 1.

I'll admit, at first I didn't get it. I was perplexed by the double-entry system, wherein every transaction is recorded twice, effecting two different accounts. This is the system of debits and credits...am I losing you already? Further complicating the matter, transactions are recorded in a journal, a chronological list, and then later posted to a ledger, a collection of all the different accounts and their balances. Still not getting it, eh? Okay, so here is the thing - some accounts (usually assets, like cash or a house, and expenses, like your electricity bill) have a debit balance, while others (liabilities, like your mortgage loan; equity, your net worth as an individual or the book value of owners' stakes in a business; and revenues, like your paycheck or sales) have a credit balance. Wow...you sure look confused - I did too!

This is where it all fits together: the entire system is based on the accounting equation, which states that:

Assets = Liabilities + Equity

So...those double entries each effect, in some way, both sides of the equations. Therefore, the equation stays balanced. Okay, so I know that no one except people familiar with accounting have any idea what I'm talking about. But that's okay, I don't think anyone is reading this blog anyway (*wink*). Still, when all of this finally clicked in my head, I knew that I had found my education path and my place in the world of business. Why? Because the equation has to balance. Everything is assigned values, and though these change, the equation stays balanced. You can be relatively sure that everything is at least mostly right if your accounts all balance out.

This is all very basic stuff; I think I have just poorly explained the first two days of class. It gets so much better. These accounts and their balances are used to prepare financial statements, which tell you all sorts of things about how a business (or, say, your personal finances) are operating. You can then do all manner of analysis with the data, giving you even more valuable information. Management and the marketing department can talk all day about pricing strategies and their big new global initiative (and I don't mean to downplay those people and disciplines; they are extremely important), but the financial statements lay it out plainly to see for those who know how to read them. The "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" book series by Robert Kiyosaki, though mostly a giant fluff piece by a hustling snake oil salesman, did contain one great piece of advice: "Learn to think in financial statements". If more businesses stopped to think about exactly how that decision they're making is going to impact not just the bottom line, but the intermediary steps on the financial statements, and how that is going to impact all the various means of analyzing and comparing and projecting...well, I think we'd get far less stupid decisions.

So there you go, world. I like accounting. It works.