What they used to teach you at Stanford

Seven lessons learned by someone who received an MBA back in 1972.

GFC - what can we learn / teach?

How do we learn from the GFC (TM)? Here's what a few business school deans think.

Postgraduate courses

The Oz had a nice special last weekend (Sept 6-7) aobut postgraduate study; both by coursework and research. Here's one nice article from the special. Sensible advice.

Accounting jobs

Looks like it's still a good time to be studying accounting. The latest research from the Dept of Education, Science and Training suggests that there will be an ongoing shortfall in accounting graduates. Keep studying!

Why group work?

Marcia Devlin writes in today's Australian (article helpfully not online) about the benefits of group work (timely given the group project is due in a few weeks). Marica is from the University of Melbourne, and has a number of articles at this link that points to her research. An article on group work in particular can be found at this link (14 page PDF).

Plagiarism

Paul Mathews in the Australian writes about plagiarism at universities. Giveaways include sentences of highly complex, technical language in the middle of an assignment with poor grammar and spelling generally. Tip for students: if you're using someone else's work, provide references. If you can google it, so can we. Paul is right when he says that we want to read your opinions, even if they are in 'bad' english.

ICAA program

You may know that the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA), is one of the 2 professional accounting bodies in Australia (CPA Australia being the other). The ICAA have recently lowered its entry requirements to its professional program. You can now qualify for their professional program by completing only one 'financial accounting' unit (note: from 2008 this will be increased to three courses). This seems to be a response to the difficulties in accounting firms currently face in attracting graduates. Hmm. Part of the problem is that accounting graduates are extremely sought-after in the employment market, and in particular are able to earn significantly higher salaries from the investment banks and consulting firms than they can by going to a Big 4 accounting firm. I'm not convinced that lower entry requirements is going to solve the problem. Given the increasing complexity of business, this strikes me as going in exactly the wrong direction. More here and here.

Or should you be studying dentistry?

Graduate starting salaries not on the rise, according to an AP report in the Herald:

UNIVERSITY graduates entering their careers with dollar signs in their eyes will be disappointed by starting salaries that have fallen in real terms from those of their immediate predecessors.

While their more experienced colleagues are enjoying increased wages as a result of the economic boom, university graduates under 25 earned an average $40,800 last year, up just 2 per cent from 2005, revealed the Graduate Careers Australia's annual survey, released today.

I'd guess that students graduating with accounting majors would have a higher median starting salary than the economics/business students overall ($40,000 for economics/business), though of course the article doesn't confirm this.* The median starting salary for UNSW undergraduate business students in 2006 was $45,000.

*UPDATE: According to the Institute of Chartered Accountants (quoted in the Oz), meadian starting salary for accounting graduates is $42,600.

UPDATE 2: Looks like the shortage is causing firms to try and grab students in high school (just like the Premier League teams, no?!).

Should you be studying accounting?

Why yes, yes, you should. Looks like the shortage of accountants is continuing.

UNIVERSITIES and big accounting firms are recruiting high school students for free accounting degrees in a desperate attempt to alleviate the skills shortage in the profession.

Talented Year 12 students are being offered part-time jobs and free university degrees by firms, even before they have applied for a university place.

First-year students are also being poached by companies to work full-time with incentives such as sign-up bonuses, rumoured to be as much as $10,000 for each student.

Now just think how valuable you'll be if you work hard and get good marks!! Why the shortage? It certainly appears to be demand driven - the supply of graduates with accounting degrees keeps rising. One of the reasons is that accounting "skills" are seen as useful regardless of what 'area' you'll actually end up working in (in much the same way as a law degree is seen as a useful 'general' qualification, even for those not actually practicing law. Another reason that demand is rising is increasing compliance requirements for companies generally (such as the SOX requirements in the United States).