What do you do before an exam?

Just looked and my last blog entry was in week 3. Been a bit busy in the meantime.

calm exam

We’re now in week 12 and it’s exam time. Over the last 9 weeks I’ve made some new friends and worked as a team on the accounting assignments, where we did rather well. I’ve done the online tests for both accounting and economics and submitted an economics assignment. I’ve read every page in the text books and done loads of practice questions. For accounting I’ve done all of last years past papers multiple times. And now what?

I haven’t taken a closed book exam for 15 years. I can’t recall what I’m supposed to be doing? Should I desperately read all my notes? Should I redo all the test questions? Should I write out all the ratios that I think I might need? These are possible good things. What I’ve actually done is drink tea, go on Twitter and the washing up. And write this. Procrastination and avoidance appear to be the go at the moment.

These exams are odd. I was under the impression that to pass the unit I needed to pass the assignments and pass the exam, which I thought needed at least 50%. Turns out I’m mistaken I only need to pass the unit. So I need 15/60 on accounting today and 20/60 from Wednesday’s economics and they’re passed.

Does this take the pressure off? Yes, it does. Does it make me more anxious as it seems too easy? Yes, it does that too. My wife and my accountant friend (doing her MBA with no exams this week) seem to believe that I’ve got this in the bag. I probably have, but until I take a deep breath and see the paper I have no idea.

A long time ago as part of my Food Tech degree we had a business unit. The night before the exam I was coaching my housemates on the subject, full of confidence. In the exam, disaster, I had nothing. I do not want a repeat of that. I feel it’s unlikely, but until I get to see that paper at 2pm, it’s going to niggle at me.

I’ve 3 1/2 hours before I leave for the uni. That’s a lot of time I can spend doing something. Not sure what that’s going to be though.

The other odd thing is that #1 child, who is at the Rockhampton CQU campus (I’m distance with CQU at Bundaberg) is also taking exams today. If you’d said to me over the last 20 years that there would be a day where one of my children and I would be taking exams at the same time, I would’ve called you out as being ridiculous. Yet, this is where I find myself. Funny how things work out.

I’m going to sign off with this gem from REM. This was my pre-exam song throughout the early ’90’s at uni and when I did my brewing exams.

It’s not the end of the world and I feel fine!

For those of you also doing exams this week and next, good luck, you got this.

If it was easy…..

Week 3, not fun. I’ll be honest, it’s been a challenge this week. In accounting it’s been more journaling entries and adjustment of accounts. In economics, supply and demand elasticity and markets.

I understand the concept of accrual accounting and the need to adjust entries at month end to avoid overstatement or understatement on the financial reports, but can I successfully transfer this understanding into my workbook? Not consistently. I’ve found that I think I know what I’m doing then I find I’ve over complicated it or missed something simple. I am fortunate that the lecturer has been very quick to respond to my questions.

Economics continues to be a whole lot of words and graphs to complicate what should be quite simple. Consequently a lot of it remains a mystery. I had a win in a Zoom meeting with one to the lecturers where I was the only one to dial in. This did mean we could focus on what I wanted instead of what he’d planned to share. At the time it all made sense, the next day, not so much. He was impressed that I was on track, as many of his Sydney on campus students don’t appear to have opened the book yet, that does make me feel a tiny bit better.

It’s been a frustrating week as I should be getting this stuff nailed down, but then it is a lot more challenging in terms of volume of information to absorb and the output required each week. I suppose if it was easy everyone would do it and it isn’t easy for that very reason. It’s not called a Master Degree for nothing. On that note this blogs loosely related song is Something for Nothing – The Reverend Preston’s Big Damn Band. If I want this degree I’ve got to work for it.

What’s working well is the study group with Lucy and Suzy, between us we’ve the first assignment for ACCT20070 practically completed, which is a positive for us all. It’s a good support network.

This is the end of the first quarter of the term, even though this week has been a struggle I’m still enjoying the challenge and remain confident in that positive outcome after the exam block. Roll on week 4.

Happy Studies

Not Enough Hours in the Day

Week 2 is now over, what a difference to the Bachelor course! I had anticipated that as it was a step up course there would be a higher expectation and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Not sure if I was expecting that high a step up.

ACCT11059 was a breeze in comparison to ACCT20070. The bachelors was definitely a gentle (re)introduction to learning, spreadsheets and the mechanics of accounting. In that unit we were looking at the output produced in a company report and trying to decipher it. In the MPA we’ve dove straight into the first principles, with a simple intro in week 1 & 2 looking at the basics of income statements, statement of changes in equity and the balance sheet. This was a new one for me as it introduced the process of journal entries and the transfer into a T-account. A process that wasn’t introduced in ACCT11059. Once I’d nailed how debits (on the left) and credits (on the right) and which ones were normal debit or credit balances, I was feeling pretty confident and can knock out a journal and ledger along with the financial sheets pretty quick. Then week 3 has happened.

I’m comfortable with the concept of accrual accounting, the process of actually doing it is another thing entirely. I’ve spent the better part of the day trying to work it out and I’d say I have a comfort factor of 50% and rising. I’ve started to wind myself in knots so I’ve stopped for the night on that.

I’m enjoying the challenge that accounting is presenting and the joy when I crack at concept, it’s not all rosy though. Each week our lecturer sends out the solutions to the weeks questions. I was very disappointed to find multiple errors throughout the solutions. A number of emails have gone Monika’s (unit leader) way today to inform her of the issues. Another positive is that we did have a Zoom with Monika that added value, so she knows who we are (Suzy, Lucy and I) and hopefully will be active in supporting us.

Economics, so much reading!! Two chapters each week that are really in-depth and need to have notes taken. This is my first time studying economics, I’m finding it interesting though struggling to think like an economist. I’ve run into a couple of questions where my cynical, practical approach doesn’t match the expectations of the books solution. It’s still early in the course so I’ve plenty of time to learn. I’m understanding the concepts, though trying to answer a question that expects a graph is a bugger. Give me the data and I can plot a graph, no worries. Try and draw one without data, not a hope.

Another plus is that I’ve got two study groups, Lucy and Suzy in accounts and Trevor and Tiff in Economics. L&S have been in active communication and we had a Zoom this morning which was helpful. T&T, bit quiet at the moment, we’ll see how they all go.

With so much reading there’s not much space in the day for much else. It’s late to bed, early to rise and lunchtime spent reading. Fortunately (well not really) I’m still off running for a week or two, so there’s a bit of extra capacity because of that. It is a case of eye on the prize and that first interim award at the end of term 3 and the potential new career, so I think it is definitely worth it.

Leveling Up

And we’re back. It’s officially week 1 of term 2. But for me it’s technically term 1 of a new course. I’ve moved off the Bachelor of Accounting and leveled up to the Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) There’s a bit of a difference.

While doing the two units last term was fun and I achieved good marks, I really have nothing to show for it apart from a bill to pay, some intangible benefits and some new friends. This last point btw is the one I’m most pleased about.

I’ve had my course mapped out so I can pick up interim awards as I progress and my next couple of years looks like this. Not much room to move in this plan. CC57 plan

Fortunately for me, I am currently off work after having my hernia operated on last week. I’ve got until the 23rd to get as far ahead as possible before I got back to office. When I first looked at going onto the MPA I had assumed that it would be a bit tougher with more content and higher expectations. After all, participants are expected to already have a bachelors degree and should know what they’re getting into. I had assumed correctly and as I found yesterday it turns out that there are parts of the MPA that are shared with the MBA.

This week I have made a start and practically completed all the tasks for ACCT20070 and ECON20039. What I have noticed is that though the content isn’t particularly challenging at this stage the volume of reading and activities to go through at the end of each week is considerable. At the end of the first chapter of the accounting text book there are 16 pages of questions to go through. I could take the easy way out and just wait for the answers and then fill in the gaps. Really though, that’s not the way to do things properly. The accounting unit is an introduction, delivered with a very different style, content and expectation to ACCT11059 from the Bachelors. I’m actually quite pleased that I did that first, that unit has given me a decent grounding to get into this one. If it was my first ever unit I would be a bit more concerned.

ECON20039 is interesting. I’ve never studied economics before. Key take outs so far; it’s all about resources and choice and you can only spend money once. There are limited resources and the choice is what to do with the resources available, what output is required. To choose one output over another has an opportunity cost, this cost increases as the output of one of those choices increases at the expense of another. There is also the concept of the Production Possibilities Frontiers, which is a fun thing to get ones head around. There’s also a heap of graphs and other concepts that will no doubt surface as the weeks go on.

What was good about the ACCT11059 unit was the requirement to create this blog and interact. This worked really well for me, so in an attempt to form a study group I looked on Moodle to see where and who the distance students are. I emailed all participants. noting that there are some doing both the units as I am, and waited.

I am now in a little WhatsApp chat/study group with Suzy and Lucy, both MBA students in Rocky and Mackay. They’re both doing ACCT11059 and FINC20018, so we have a shared aim in accounting and for me the inside track on a unit I won’t be attempting until next year. From our chat last night I’m confident that this will be a positive term.

Midway through week 1 I’m happy that I’ve leveled up, I understand the expectations of the MPA and the workload will be greater and that’s OK so

challenge accpeted