AFM 101 – Introduction to Financial Accounting
1. What are you taking away from this course?
This course provided me the foundation of my accounting knowledge. Before
coming to this class, I did not know what accounting was and this class taught me
the basics including debits, credits, financial statements and bonds.
I am taking away from this course what I need to know for the future, which is the
technical knowledge of accounting.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
Since this course was in my first semester of university, it would be difficult to
relate AFM 101 to other courses.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
During my second co-op term, I was asked to verify that one of the automated
amortizing calculations was correct. Using my AFM 101 knowledge, I was able to
perform the work. In this task, the system will automatically calculate
amortization expense during that year and using the knowledge I gained in AFM
101, I checked if my calculated number matched with the system’s number, based
on historical cost, estimated residual value and asset life.
AFM 102– Introduction to Managerial Accounting
1. What are you taking away from this course?
This course provided the foundation of my management accounting knowledge. I
learned about different costing methods (absorption, variable, ABC), variances,
and my first taste of NPV, payback method and IRR. This course gave me a new
perspective on accounting and sparked my interest in management accounting.
This type of accounting keeps track of company/management performance and is
necessary to determine if the company is doing well or not.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
This course doesn’t directly relate to anything I have taken before but it provides
excellent contrast with AFM 101. The main contrast between AFM 101 and AFM
102, is that 101 is for external users, investors, and AFM 102 is for internal users,
management.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
For my first work term, this was the most important class. I was a cost accountant
and dealt with budgets, variances and forecasting. My boss was impressed that I
was familiar with material price variance and other management accounting
concepts.
At work I learned how these variances apply in real life and how important the
balance scorecard is to a company. Bringing school and the work place together
allowed me to enrich both experiences.
AFM 131– Introduction to Business in North America
1. What are you taking away from this course?
I learned different leadership styles, organization structures, business strategies,
and high level marketing tactics. This was a great class to understanding business.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
Since this was in my first semester in university it would be difficult to relate this
course to other courses.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
AFM 131 has integrated well with my extracurricular activities. I have been
given a lot of leadership opportunities and through the different styles I have
learned in AFM 131 (autocratic, participative, etc) I have applied different styles
for different scenarios and when there were different team dynamics.
AFM 201– Introduction to Professional Practice
1. What are you taking away from this course?
What I took away from this course is a true understanding of what a possible
career could look like. I learned what auditing was and how to do basic taxes.
Through this course I understood the importance of auditing to the business
environment. Without audits, frauds would occur more frequently, whether on
purpose or accident and this would under mind the business world.
In this course we had to do two cases and both cases were realistic. This made the
course more applied based. I took away from the tax portion of AFM 201, the
understanding of basic tax credits, deductions, income brackets and tax forms.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
This course related to STAT 211 because many of the sampling processes are
statistical methods. I found the audit side focused the methodology rather than
actually doing auditing and it was difficult to relate my accounting courses to
auditing. While the tax portion, was something I have never encountered before.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
My second work term I did internal and information system audits. This course
was very beneficial in providing me the basics to auditing and helped me
understand why Deloitte does certain methods when auditing. Through this
course I was able to apply my knowledge of controls to my work and give an
assessment of assurance.
On the tax side of this course, I was able to do my whole family’s tax return. This
was a great learning experience because I was able to apply my knowledge to real
life scenarios and see the benefits of an AFM education.
AFM 231– Business Law
1. What are you taking away from this course?
Some of the important concepts I learned from this course was tort, contract and
patient law. This course also helped me with my oral communication skills
because each group had to do a presentation. What made this presentation
different from other presentations was the AFM 231 presentation was far more
professional.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
This course integrates with AFM 131 because there are a few common topics.
One of the major concepts is the different business formulations including
partnership, corporations and limited partnership. AFM 131 taught about forms
of businesses and AFM 231 taught me the legal implications of those business
forms.
This course also integrated with AFM 271. AFM 271 taught us how shareholders
wealth can be maximized through positive NPV projects and AFM 231 taught us
why we would want to (have to) maximize shareholder wealth.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
AFM 241– Introduction to Business Information Technology
1. What are you taking away from this course?
This course I learned how information systems could be used in a business to gain
a competitive advantage. I learned how databases work and the different forms of
information systems (CRMs, ERPs). I take away from this course the importance
of information technology in today’s business world and the financial implication
it could have both on the top line and bottom line.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
This course relates with AFM 131 because AFM 131 teaches how you can gain a
competitive advantage through marketing techniques such as product, promotion,
price and place. Using information systems, such as CRMs, you can place your
product in the most optimal location. Tracking sales you can determine what kind
of promotions work and what promotions don’t work.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
During my last co-op I learned a lot about information systems. This course
helped me understand how to audit these systems and how they work together
with the financial data. For example, SAP is a popular ERP system. Through
learning about SAP in AFM 241, I was able to effectively audit SAP because I
already knew how SAP worked.
AFM 271– Managerial Finance 1
1. What are you taking away from this course?
What I am taking away from this course is the fundamentals of finance. Truly
understanding time value of money is one of the most important concepts of my
university career. Time value is very important because of the increasing need to
value items at fair market value.
Through this course I am able to understand how to price stocks and why some
projects are taken and why some are not taken. One of the most important
components of project management is budgeting and if you take into account time
value of money, it makes the budget much more accurate.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
This course integrated with AFM 241 because during one of the AFM 241 class,
the TA did a presentation on how an implementation of an information system
would result in a positive or negative NPV. He informed us that many of the
concepts that we learn in finance are used to determine if an IT project is worth
taking.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
When I was working at Siemens Power Generation, my boss was telling me about
how they determine if they take a project or not through net present value
calculations. At the time, I didn’t make the connection but now looking in hind
sight, I realized that my boss was using finance knowledge to determine the
profitability of a project.
AFM 291– Intermediate Financial Accounting 1
1. What are you taking away from this course?
In this course I learned to account for the asset side of the balance sheet. I learned
about revenue recognition, accounts receivable – write off methods, construction
in progress, and non-monetary exchanges. This course provided me with a deeper
understanding of financial accounting and why we learned certain methods in
AFM 101. An example, is when we learned multi-step income statement, I
originally thought it had no purpose but then I learned about quality of earnings
and it made sense.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
As I stated earlier, this course built on my knowledge from AFM 101. For
example, when learning about accounts receivable in AFM 101, I never took into
consideration what happens if they don’t pay. I learned how that is accounted for
in AFM 291 through the income and balance sheet methods. There were many
topics that were expanded in AFM 291 from AFM 101.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
AFM 371– Managerial Finance 2
1. What are you taking away from this course?
This course taught me about options, derivatives, dividend policies, the
importance of capital structure and mergers. I am taking away from this course
the usefulness of finance in the real world and how it applies to real life scenarios.
For example, I knew how to do an NPV calculation but learning to apply it in a
lease vs. buy situation makes it applicable to the real world and something I can
pass onto my employers.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
This course integrated with AFM 391. The concepts of bonds and leases
overlapped between the two courses. When accounting for leases, you must
record the equipment at fair market value. This can be done by taking into
account the incremental cash flows which is a finance concept taught in AFM
371.
This course also integrated well with my international economics course. In my
international economics we learned the factors that affect interest rates, exchange
rates and prices and in finance, we learned the consequences of such action. For
example, if countries have a different cross rate than exchange rate, then arbitrage
can occur and the differences in exchange rates are due to knowledge gaps in the
economics of the countries.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?
In my daily life, I do take into account real options. For example, when you pay
your deposit for your residence, it is similar to buying a call option. When you
buy a call option, you pay a premium to have the right to buy the stock at a certain
price (i.e. strike price) but if the value of the stock falls then you do not have to
purchase the stock. This is similar to residence deposits, if I feel that residence is
worth the money then I will pay my residence fees. However, if I think residence
is not worth the money then I will not pay my residence fees and only lose the
deposit. This is example of the many ways I use real options, and other ways
include paying for insurance, buying and selling at locked prices, any deposits,
etc.
AFM 391– Intermediate Financial Accounting 2
1. What are you taking away from this course?
I am taking from this course how to account for the liabilities and equity side of
the balance sheet. I am now starting to understand how you record some of the
more complicated transactions in business. The use of convertible bonds and
derivatives in today’s business world has never been more evident. If these
transactions are not record properly then it is more likely unrepresentative
financial statements would be presented.
2. How does this course integrate with other courses?
This course integrated well with AFM 371 because many of the ways you record
transaction is through the fair market value which is calculated by discounting
incremental cash flows. Without finance, it would be much more difficult
understanding why you would account for items using fair market value.
3. How does this course integrate with your other learning experiences - to
include work terms?