On starting the reading for this course, I reflected on what I was studying and why. I am currently studying a Bachelor of Business majoring in management and property (hopefully). I am a mother of two young children and I previously worked as a paralegal prior to my kids being born.
One of the key concepts that I have taken from chapter 1 is that accounting is about understanding how a business creates or destroys value in real-time. Whilst I recognize the types of businesses there can be e.g. company, sole trader, or partnership and how they all interact in different markets with other businesses, customers, and suppliers. I also recognise the terminology of journals and ledgers, however as this is my first time studying double-entry bookkeeping, it was a little daunting to read about debits being on the left-hand side and credits being on the right, positive and negative numbers, expenses, revenue, assets, liability and equity accounts with no previous experience putting this into practice, as I have not been exposed to accounting programs such as MYOB before so wrapping my head around the terminology is exciting and I love that there are formulas to help assist me remembering the key accounting principals / five main elements. I find explaining things helps me to understand and remember concepts so I do think my children are going to be hearing all about how assets plus expenses equal equity plus revenue plus liabilities all the time.
I am a reserved person who hasn’t studied in a long time so I am definitely a little worried about not speaking up enough and of course that the things I have to say may be off topic or not intelligent but that is the reason why we study – to grow, to change, to be better, so that is my aim for this semester, to just give this subject my best attempts and hoping to actively learn something along the way!
This idea that there are different ways to learn was intriguing as I have always believed learning to be where you gather facts to increase your knowledge whilst applying it to your everyday, building on your experiences to grow yourself as a person. I have never realised that the way that we learn can be broken down into surface or active learning. Now that I have read about the difference, I have to say I am excited to throw myself into active learning, as I have probably always been comfortable with surface learning. I did ask myself from the readings of the introduction chapter, how I was going to actively learn throughout this course when I have no previous accounting experience and from the reading of assignment one, I was a little bit lost as to what KCQs were! Luckily I was able to watch a video link from the unit facebook group and I have decided to take a positive approach to this unit and really throw myself into actively learning by participating as much as my personality allows and doing extra reading and practice of the basics where I can to give myself the best chance of success.
Working in office environments for over 10 years, it is easy to see why communication and interpersonal skills are necessary, I agree that effective online communication skills are becoming extremely important and becoming more vital to the everyday in business. This key concept had me thinking about some of the law firms I have previously worked in, having offices as well as clients in different states as well as countries with a focus on keeping offices and people connected being an important part of the culture of the firm so the advantages fair outweigh the disadvantages of online communication for me but as someone who does like to ‘read people’ I do agree that online communication can have drawbacks with no physical cues and the potential for misunderstandings to arise.
One of the key concepts that I have taken from chapter 1 is that accounting is about understanding how a business creates or destroys value in real time. Whilst I recognize the types of businesses there can be e.g. company, sole trader or partnership and how they all interact in different markets with other businesses, customers and suppliers. I also recognise the terminology of journals and ledgers, however as this is my first time studying double entry bookkeeping, it was a little daunting to read about debits being on the left hand side and credits being on the right, positive and negative numbers, expenses, revenue, assets, liability and equity accounts with no previous experience putting this into practice, as I have not been exposed to accounting programs such as MYOB before so wrapping my head around the terminology is exciting and I love that there are formulas to help assist me remembering the key accounting principals / five main elements. I find explaining things helps me to understand and remember concepts so I do think my children are going to be hearing all about how assets plus expenses equals equity plus revenue plus liabilities all the time.
Another key concept that I found interesting and enjoyed reading about, was that we build on the past, our actions today are based on may people’s actions before us, which gave me hope that I will eventually understand this thing called accounting.
The questions arising from the key concepts in this chapter were more focused on how I was going to remember the different account interactions for example by debiting one account, it will credit another and again it came down to a positive attitude towards actively learning this semester and a commitment to doing extra reading or practice, participating in group forums and studying groups when and if possible.
I look forward to studying this subject of accounting this semester with a new understanding of learning and I am keen to continue with the next chapter of reading to help me continue to connect the dots.
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