Professors’ Tips for Achieving Second Semester Success

Author: Cori

Life as a MAC student can be time consuming! Between all of our social activities, jobs, and classes, we also have school work to complete. The type of school work we have varies from semester to semester.

First Semester Classes

The first semester is marked by a lot of research, writing, and presentations. During the first semester our classes involve learning soft skills and working on business communications. We are assigned groups in each class to improve our ability to work with others. We also work on our writing skills in each class; we are expected to prepare memos and business letters for many of our projects.

We also prepare various presentations for each class. Most of our time, after class, is spent in group meetings and working on research projects. All of the soft skills we work on during this semester are helpful because the majority of students are recruiting during these few months and are attending several recruiting events.

Second Semester Classes

The second semester has more emphasis on technical accounting classes and studying to keep up with the subjects. We still do an occasional presentation and write some memos to keep up our skills from our first semester classes. This semester our time is now taken up worrying about exams and studying instead of devoting most of our time to group meetings. The classes we take in the second semester are closely related to the more technical and difficult CPA exam sections. We’re working hard to make sure we learn and retain the material for the exams we plan to take over the summer.

I asked a few professors to give a few tips for achieving success during the second semester classes and making the transition from the first semester to the second semester.

MAC Professors Tips for Achieving 2nd Semester Success

Dr. Bruce Branson, professor of our Mergers & Acquisitions and Derivatives & Hedging class, gave me a few tips for navigating his class as well as the other classes we take in the second semester. He acknowledged how difficult it is for us to stay current in our classes while we were focusing on taking our first CPA exam within the first few months of the semester. He suggested students should try to get the first CPA exam out of the way, as early as possible, so they don’t get too behind on classes and have to play catch up throughout the rest of the semester.

In order to be as successful as possible in classes Dr. Branson suggested “self assessment as often as possible.” In order to be sure that you are comfortable with the coursework, the student should be honest with himself about whether or not he understands the material and should ask questions when there is any confusion. “Not asking for help is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when trying to learn new and difficult material.”

Dr. Kathy Krawczyk, MAC Program Director and professor of the Accounting & Tax Research class, in the first semester, agreed with Dr. Branson and emphasized the need for students to assign enough time to classes. Dr. Krawczyk stressed that students should try, as best they can, to finish taking the BEC portion of the CPA in the first few weeks of the second semester because although it is great to get a section of the exam out of the way, getting through the program is also a priority.

If you have any questions about MAC workload, classes, and time management to balance CPA studying and classes, just drop me a message!