GRIND

Earlier when I was starting this whole “graduate school” endeavor, I was stuck in undergraduate remedial classes. I remember thinking that this was easy. I was an adult handling undergraduate classes, unencumbered by alcohol, and I passed with flying colors.

Then graduate school happened. It happened with ease actually. The first class was during the summer where effort was required, but still, not anything beyond a difficult undergraduate class. This semester everything has changed. Commitments to clubs outside of class combined with extra class work (papers every week graded for a single point each) are beginning to get to me. Combine this with pressure about higher employment, taking and preparing for the CPA exam, high personal standards, and that fact that everyone seems to have 8 paths to victory.

I remember this sinking feeling in the last semesters of my original college career. All of this stress culminated in me drinking a bottle of wine while I worked on a paper. I did a photo collage where you can watch the bottle of wine slowly disappear and the paper length stagnate.

Everything turned out alright though. I mean kind of. I never did get a REAL job.

Reflection from the first day of school

9:38am
First day of class and the teacher is already rambling. She is talking about the “awesome” internships she had while the economy while riding high on the hog. I am also picking up lots of buzzword bingo language as well.
Think outside the box.
I still have hope for this class though (you mean, I have almost given up hope within the first 40 minutes of class?). It looks interesting and auditing is, as the teacher claims, “not like any other accounting class you will take.”

11:09am
Just got a stern lecture by a professor noting that the “market for accountants is not nearly as good as it was a year ago”. A result of this I am not supposed to expect as many job offers as before.

Why my boss likes me

First cost estimate: $10,000
Second cost estimate: $3,000
Third cost estimate: $500

I guess there is a steep learning curve on this one.

Cupcake Accounting

To Owner of the Local Cupcake Guild:

We were doing cost functions in my "Cost Accounting" class and I was called upon to make up a fictitious business an the associated numbers so we could do some work on contribution margin.

Naturally I chose a cupcake factory as the business and the information as follows.

Cupcake price: $1.50
Cupcake material cost: $0.60
Fixed costs: $350 (machinery, kitchen inspection bribes, booze, et cetera)
Tax rate: 20%

Contribution margin per cupcake: $0.90

Break even point (profits = 0): 398 cupcakes sold

Cupcakes sold to make pre-tax $30,000 = 33,334

Cupcakes sold to make post-tax $30,000 = 41,667

So if it took you an hour to make and sell 24 cupcakes, you would only need to work 1736.13 hours in a year (or 33.4 hours a week) to make a post tax income of $30,000.

Not bad.

I also want you to imagine that for around an hour 35 or so frustrated accounting students were crunching the numbers on your business.

K

Jump

Yesterday I jumped in with both feet. I had classes and work from 12:30 to 9:30pm followed by group work on a presentation that needed serious grammar control*. From there I charged home, and then went to the gym. I got back, showered, and then drank 24oz of Olde English, ending the day around 1:30 or so. I secretly love it when my days are packed. I am always impressed at those who tell me that they are constantly busy, manage to get everything done on 2 hours of sleep, and then drink at the bar 3 nights a week. Sure, there is some embellishment, no one really functions that well without massive difficulties, bodily harm, and personality disorders that are left out of the story (and they probably sleep a little longer as well), but imagine what I could accomplish (or the fun that could be had) if sleep was unnecessary.


*One sentence in the presentation was merely a collection of prepositional phrases