As I said in my earlier blog, the MPA summer programs allow you to take two accounting elective courses in a foreign country: one led by UT faculty, and one led by faculty at the host university.
I’ve already discussed the Czech faculty I had the privilege of taking classes with, so now it’s time to talk about my UT faculty led course.
The course was split up between UT Professors Kamas and Koonce. Before I dive into the subject matter they taught, I would like to point out that these courses aren’t like any MPA courses you can take in Austin. Not only are they in a foreign country, but the faculty get to set their own curricula. This means that they get to lecture on whatever they are passionate about, and their passion definitely comes across in their teaching.
Professor Kamas led the first half of the course, and focused on managerial accounting and financial statement analysis. We discussed what considerations international firms take into account in order to manage their profits and strategy effectively. The course material really hit home because Professor Kamas used cases of international firms and brought in his own copious experience of running a business. Professor Kamas had a Big 4 partner come to the classroom and discuss the challenges of moving from the US to a foreign country with our class. We also enjoyed the luxury of seeing what we were learning in the classroom applied to an actual multinational company. We went on a company visit of Skoda (the largest car manufacturer in the Czech Republic), and learned about accounting and the strategy challenges of trying to expand internationally.
The second half of the course was led by Professor Koonce. To give you some background on her course material, Professor Koonce is the top experimental researcher in financial reporting according to the most recent BYU rankings of accounting research (go Professor Koonce!). She introduced us to experimental research in accounting by lecturing on the basics of judgment and decision making and how the concepts overlapped with accounting. This was probably the most fascinating class I have taken in my time in the MPA Program. We are lucky to have such wonderful faculty teaching us, but teaching is such a small part of some of their jobs. So much of their time is dedicated to research, and we really have no idea what is involved in this. Hearing about the basics of what our faculty are up to when they are not in the classroom was an unbelievable experience.
Click here to continue to Part 3 of Ally’s Czech It Out Adventures!