Category Archives: Academics

classes, degree planning, academic workshops, CPA exam planning and preparation

Academics, Jonathan, Student Life

The Final Push

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Fall classes drew to a close yesterday, and the final countdown to exams had begun in earnest.  The atmosphere has clearly changed in McCombs.  As of last Tuesday, I had become accustomed to walking into the Reliant Productivity Center (a large 24-hour study room in the business school) between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. and having the entire place to myself.  No longer.  Today, the place was jammed at the crack of dawn.  It is now 10:00 a.m., I’ve just checked, and there is not a single seat available.  Quite frankly, the loud sighs and frantic page-turning are a bit too intense for me, so I have decided to spend my day in the more civilized math library instead. 

Though there is a full week between now and my first two exams, I doubt there is really enough time to adaquately prepare.  Intermediate accounting alone requires a week of preparation.  I am probably a day or two away from feeling comfortable with my other classes, but, then again, if the second cost accounting midterm exam was any indication, the final will be a marathon.  I will need to make sure that I have fully programmed the class material into my head if  I expect to finish the exam on time.

With so much riding on time management, I have to make sure that I don’t get sidetracked with distractions this week.  Here is what I have to take care of now so that cram week gets off without a hitch.

Buy Food:  I plan to swing by MT Supermarket (best asian market in Austin) for my  final restocking this afternoon.  I’ll need two or three bunches of green vegetables, some fruit, and tofu to get me through the next 7 days.  I’m just about out of food, and if I have to run out to the market a day or two before the exam, I’ll probably start to get frantic.

Laundry:  This, I’m doing tonight.  A full load of laundry should get me through the week.   Once again, I can’t be sweating these small details before the exam.  Oh wait, I don’t have any coins…

Run to the Bank:  I need a roll of quarters for laundry.

Plane Tickets:  Check.  I took care of these a few days ago.  I am all set to fly to Pittsburgh a few days after the exam.  My wife will be moving down to Austin with me in early December (she’s finishing up school in Steel Town a week after my fall semster is done).  I can’t wait to see her, and she can’t wait so say goodbye to snowy 26-degree winter days.

Alcohol:  None until school’s over!

Academics, Austin, Bart, Student Life

Thanksgiving: The Starting Line for Finals & A Celebration with My MPA Family

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Clockwise from the far head of the table: Theodore, Won, Xinhao, Zyenga, Wei, Kendra, Matt, Joseph, Patrick, Me and Mark

Thanksgiving is perhaps my favorite holiday of the year. Although it is an uniquely North American holiday (I say North American to acknowledge the Canadian observance), it truly transcends religion, language and national origin. Everyone has something they can be thankful for—especially MPAs. Whether it’s the high reputation of the program; the quality education we receive from accomplished faculty; or our excellent career services team, MPA students have an abundance of resources at their fingertips. So when it came time to plan my Thanksgiving holiday, I decided to celebrate it in Austin with my new MPA family.

Because the Texas MPA program has a huge contingent of out-of-state students, there was a considerable number of MPA students staying in Austin for Thanksgiving. Of the traditional MPAs for the class of 2010, 60 percent were non-Texas residents. And of the attendees at the Thanksgiving MPA get-together, I was the only one from Texas.

At the beginning of the month, I consulted with one of my friends about planning a Thanksgiving get-together. We decided to do it potluck style, which means that each person attending the meal brings a dish. I decided to make this Jell-o and fruit cocktail mix that my grandmother usually makes. It turned out pretty well. In case you were wondering, the secret is not use water to make the Jell-o. Use Sprite.

My friend, Theodore, decided to cook the turkey. We were all very apprehensive about this. Earlier this semester, he had tried to tailgate before the Wyoming game. After failing to light the grill, he decided to cook the sausages in the microwave. The sausages exploded! Needless to say, we didn’t want a repeat of culinary disaster right before our Thanksgiving meal. But Theodore reassured us that he would get directions from his mother, and he would have a delicious bird ready for our meal. Well, he surprised us all! The turkey was delicious, cooked properly and not dried out. You can’t ask for more than that.

And finally, what Thanksgiving is complete without some football? After we finished the meal, we all helped clean the dishes and tidy up before heading back to campus to watch our Longhorns take on those Aggies from that other school across the state. Theodore and Mark actually dressed up as cowboys for the game. They were quite hysterical. Too bad their school spirit wasn’t enough to help our boys to the win. Despite the loss, we all still enjoyed the game.

Academics, Karen, Student Life

Tax Research and Texas Rangers: What’s the Connection?

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Josh Hamilton
Josh Hamilton (Keith Allison photo)

If you want to become an instant millionaire, try catching Josh Hamilton’s homerun baseball. It seems that easy, right? Well, not until you consider the tax consequences of catching such.  It took me a total of maybe 40 hours, 8 cups of caffeine, and a hundred surges of migraine to look for and analyze these consequences and to write a six-page, single-spaced memo on my analysis.

Welcome to Tax Research.

Tax Research teaches students how to identify and use relevant tax laws and sources in answering tax questions and how to communicate these research analyses and conclusions effectively.  The course is comprised of two exams and case assignments derived from real-world situations. It has been one of the most challenging courses I’ve taken, and ironically enough, I’ve been enjoying the class.

 What makes it so challenging?

Professor Zvinakis has taught the course for six years, ever since she began teaching at UT.

She said that what makes the class difficult is that “a clear-cut answer doesn’t always exist [in tax] and the tax law is more often gray than black and white…There could be more than one answer to a particular question, depending on how the relevant tax law is interpreted.”

While I was working on the baseball case, I thought I had the answers to the questions already. However, after continuing with my reseasrch, I found more relevant tax laws and cases that could seriously refute my previous arguments. What was I to do? Work like a recharged research machine! Continue reading Tax Research and Texas Rangers: What’s the Connection? →

Academics, Career, Paul, Student Life

Recruiting Series: II. How do I study during Recruiting Season?

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This past week, I spoke to the ACC 151 classes about recruiting (i.e. the things I did well, the mistakes I made, etc.). This question came up that I feel needs extra attention. As my usual blog format though, first I’ll talk about some of the tidbits of the week!

Could you really use a wish right now?

Well stop looking for airplanes, silly! The annual Leonid Meteor Shower started on Wednesday. The shooting starts you’ll see are the remnants of a comet (Tempel-Tuttle) that passes through the system. When I was eleven, a couple of friends and I drove out to the middle of desert outside El Paso to see it, and it was awesome! I’m not sure where I’d drive here in Austin, but if you have a chance to see it, do it.

Giunta received the Medal of Honor Tuesday.

Congratulations to Salvatore A. Giunta

The staff sergeant received the Medal of Honor from President Obama this past week. Giunta “placed himself in the line of fire…to try to save his fellow squad-mates and to protect and comfort a dying American soldier.” Giunta was serving in Afghanistan. We thank you and commend you on your bravery!

New World Record

This is kind of off-topic, but I thought it was cool. A new world record was set this past week for the tallest married couple. Check it out.

Anyway, onto topic!

How do I study during recruiting season?

This is a very good question. As I told the ACE classes, the workload you undertake is a choice that you need to make based on your own personal characteristics. I would recommend that this is not the semester that you want to try to take more classes than usual. Here’s a quick background on the justification for my recommendations:

The Suzuki Method

If you didn’t know before, you’ll hear it now. I’ve studied the violin for more than19 years under this method. This method was started by Shin’ichi Suzuki of Japan; his rationale was that if a skill was nurtured for a period of time, then a student could learn a skill the same way one learns to speak a new language. (No, I’m not going to get into nature versus nurture.) Suzuki recommended repetition, to a degree, until the student gained “intuition” of the skill he was trying to accomplish; this type of learning is a process, and learning the nuances of a skill does not occur overnight. (There are, of course, many other factors involved in the Suzuki Method, but I will focus mainly on those I feel are apropos to helping MPA students.) For further reading on the philosophy, read Suzuki’s book Nurtured by Love or check out this synopsis.

Are you basically going to introduce us to the Suzuki Method…of Accounting?! Continue reading Recruiting Series: II. How do I study during Recruiting Season? →

Academics, Jonathan

Teamwork!

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Group projects are a significant part of this program.  Just about every accounting class at UT assigns group work, though the format, weight, and intensity of the projects vary greatly from class to class. In some classes, you’ll have one or two projects that barely carry any weight. In others, the projects will become a significant part of your grade. My Cost Accounting class, for example, has a total of three cases, one big one and two little ones, that in total comprise 20% of the course grade.  These cases are generally problem-solving based (“determine why company A is losing money”), and they can be pretty involved. The big project of the semester requires a five-page write-up and a 15-minute group presentation accompanied by PowerPoint slides and in business casual dress. The smaller cases are just two-page executive summaries.

In Intermediate Accounting, the cases tend to be more analysis based (“how would this item be classified on the balance sheet in light of FASB codification and industry practice”).  The write-ups in Intermediate are short, just three double-spaced pages, but the stakes are much higher. The three projects make up 18% of the course grade, and for me, this is a critical 18%.

Grading tends to run from liberal (a completion grade) to competitive. In Intermediate Accounting, the grading is relative to the rest of the class. Groups are essentially pitted against each other. This means that receiving an A on a group project depends in large part upon how well or how poorly the other groups perform. This is the Texas MPA program after all, and you can imagine that with a dozen talented and motivated groups to contend with, the competition is stiff and the intensity is high. Continue reading Teamwork! →