BS in Accounting

Accountants track and analyze the financial performance of organizations and provide managers with crucial information for decision making. Recent economic and financial crises reinforce the importance of trustworthy, fairly presented accounting information. Menlo College’s Accounting degree is designed to prepare a student for a career in accounting. Students study all of the main areas of financial and managerial accounting to have a thorough overview of the field, complemented by a practical internship experience.

Accounting majors complete the core curriculum in business (39 units) taken by all business students. The core curriculum ensures that all business majors have a solid understanding of the business enterprise's totality. The accounting degree then consists of upper-division courses in financial accounting, cost accounting, taxation, accounting information systems, and auditing that total 30 units. The accounting major can be completed in four years of study.

The Accounting curriculum enables graduating accounting majors to understand standard concepts and topics in accounting as well as demonstrate written and oral communication in the field of accounting. Learning outcomes for accounting majors include:

• Students’ learning outcomes in financial accounting are accomplished in phases through the Intermediate and Advanced Accounting coursework. In ACC 301 (Intermediate Financial Accounting I) they will be able to identify, synthesize and interpret Generally Accepted Accounting Principles as embodied in the FASB codification and demonstrate knowledge in solving homework and exam problems. In ACC 302 (Intermediate Financial Accounting II) and ACC 410 (Advanced Accounting), students will be able to prepare standard financial statements, including the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement. Student learning outcomes are measured by students successfully completing practice sets, homework sets, and exams in ACC302 and ACC410.
• Students will be able to analyze cost data and make accompanying financial decisions as a result of successfully solving homework problems and exam problems, as well as analyzing cases in ACC 412 (Cost Accounting).
• Students will be able to understand, analyze and apply the basic concepts of income tax accounting for individuals and various business entities as a result of completing practice sets and exams in ACC 321 (Tax Accounting: Individual) and ACC 322 (Tax Accounting: Business).
• Students will understand the process of auditing and understand the ethical issues associated with conducting an audit and the actual preparation of financial statements. Based on their understanding of auditing and ethics the students will be able to analyze cases and recommend a course of action in ACC300 (Accounting Ethics) and ACC420 (Auditing).

These learning outcomes prepare the accounting graduate to work in a variety of accounting positions in corporate and public accounting, to pursue further graduate level accounting coursework, and to work towards becoming a Certified Public Accountant if desired.

For students interested in pursuing a career as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), please review the requirements as prepared by the board of accountancy in the state you plan to practice. For California, you are now required to obtain 150 credits of study in order to qualify for licensure as a CPA. The specific requirements as to the fields of study needed to obtain those 150 credits are quite complicated. Please review the requirements as prepared by the California State Board of Accountancy: Educational Requirements for CPA Licensure (PDF). It is highly recommended that you read the following document, which explains which Menlo courses will meet the State Board of Accountancy requirements: Educational Requirements for California CPA Licensure: Impact on Menlo Accounting Majors.

While the Menlo Accounting program provides the educational units, studying for the CPA exams require additional individual preparation. To meet the California CPA licensure students must complete steps outlined by the California Board of Accountancy beyond the academic units. Please note that the Menlo Accounting program does not require students to obtain a CPA licensure.

Professors

Janis Zaima

Ruixue Du

Mark Bichsel