Saturday 9 March 2013

Rant: Accounting

WARNING: This post will be extremely long and will probably lack visuals throughout. Readers discretion is advised.

I am completely aware that the title of this post lacks any sort of creativity but at this point, I am completely tired and I just want to do nothing with myself anymore. So without further ado, let's just get into this rant of why I hate accounting.

So basically, last night was my accounting midterm #2. That in itself is just stupid. At what point did the universe think it's acceptable to be making two midterms? How would that even be a midterm anymore? The word "midterm" in itself means that it is a test that should be taken in the middle of the course. There can be no two middles. But anyways...

For lack of better words, I pretty much failed that midterm. If I get anything above 50%, I will consider myself the luckiest girl in the world. While other girls are out there considering themselves the luckiest if they find a nice suitor, I will be here; blessed if I pass my accounting midterm.

After accounting midterm #1, I came back telling my roommate, "Wow! Was it just me or was that midterm just the best midterm ever!? I totally killed it!" Not in those exact words, but I was pretty damn confident. Got it back. 79%. I mean, 79% isn't really the worst mark out there. I am capable of doing so much worse. However, under those circumstances, it was absolute shit. I mean, the whole midterm was based off of material I learned in high-school. I mean, given, I didn't do well in accounting in high-school either, but the information was there. The worst part was, the midterm was broken down into four sections. I got a 85% on the first, 95% on the second, and 100% on the third. What killed me was getting a 56% on the final section which was worth quite a bit of marks. Plus, to top it all off, my roommates were there frolicking in a land of joy and lack-of-consideration-for-their-sad-roommate because they received grades of 90% and 97%. But that moment passed, and I got back on my feet because I have other midterms to be doing crap on!

Then, because I had a Legal Studies essay and midterm, Political Science midterm, Psychology midterm, and multiple French tests, I managed to completely stop doing accounting after the first midterm finished. Don't judge me yet, I will address this later. So the last weekend, I spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in Toronto, at home, studying. I made pages and pages of notes and studied everything carefully. Then, I attempted doing all the practices questions that I missed on the day of the midterm. Again, I will address this stupidity later. Now, after countless hours of work, I felt like I genuinely understood most of the material. I didn't feel a hundred percent ready for the midterm, but I felt good enough that I would receive an acceptable grade.

I go into the midterm and now I'm just staring at the 13 paged booklet in front of me. I was nervous but still feeling pretty okay with myself. As soon as we were allowed to start, I opened the booklet and there were 30 multiple choices questions before me. Given I didn't understand some questions, I still feel like I did fairly well on those. Then, there was a section where we have to calculate amortization. Bam, bam, bam. Finished those questions. Done, easy. Next, there was a section on preferred shares and common shares and distribution of them and arrears and just a bunch of crap I did not for the life of me, understand. I skipped this part and decided to come back to it later. The last part was transactions analysis. Three questions. Finished in five minutes, BAM. Then I spent the rest of the time just staring at the damn preferred/common shares question. That God forsaken question was worth 12 marks. The midterm was out of 85. In the end, I filled in some bullshit and just left.

I get into the car to head back to Toronto, already feeling like absolute shit. In the car ride back, my roommate was talking about the preferred/common shares question. All I heard her say was,

"I miscalculated the years!"
I didn't even know we had to calculate years.

"Oh my gosh, I heard other people getting 28 but I got 29!"
What's 28 and 29? My numbers were in the thousands. 

And then she said, "Oh yeah, when I calculated the answer for the double-declining balance, I didn't have enough money left for year five!" Then, I swear to Lucifer, my world stopped because when I did that question, I know I had more than enough money to carry into year five. When I told her this, she said, "Wait, are you sure you did it right?"

What.

Shit.

Realization that I used the wrong formula. Then I realized: If I used the wrong formula for that question, that means I must have mixed it up with another formula. Which means that I got not only that question wrong, but another one because I must have mixed up two formulas. Ba-bam, 17 marks right there.

Now, at this point, I have lost 29 marks already, ok? I would think, "Oh well, if I'm lucky, I'll get half-marks!" but I highly doubt that. Then, let's add in the fact that I might have made other mistakes throughout the midterm. If the midterm was out of 85 marks, I'm just praying for a 42.5 which will give me 50%. But with each passing minute, I'm slowly losing hope because if I thought I aced the last midterm, and still got shit, can we just think how I'd do if I know I got shit? Will I even pass at this rate?

Alright, now we can rewind and go into depth of the multiple reasons as to why I failed that midterm. Three parts. Here we go.

Reason #1:
This is as simple as can be. This reason makes up 30% of the reason why I failed that midterm.

I didn't study.

I mean, I did study but not as thoroughly as I should have. I didn't touch accounting material since the end of the last midterm mainly due to work from other classes but also because I'm a lazy ass. I procrastinated on doing the accounting work, and I spent my time doing stupid things on LINEPLAY or playing on the Stardom app. Youtube, sleeping, going to club meetings, chilling with friends. Basically any excuse I can find to not do accounting, I probably took the opportunity. Which leads me to...

Reason #2:
A big part of the reason, probably about 40% of the reason why I did so poorly.

I hate accounting and I have zero interest in this class.

Ever since grade 11, when I first took accounting, I hated it. The first couple of tests I took in accounting class, I managed to somehow get high 90s on them. But when the work started getting more and more challenging,  I started to just give up on doing homework and resorted to just copying off my friends. Then, for tests, I got too lazy to study and I managed to just dig a hole for myself. By the end of grade 11, I managed to still get a fair grade in that class, somewhere in the mid-80s. Then, I made the awful mistake of taking the course again in grade 12. I was going to drop the class and switch my schedule around but the whole process was so over-overwhelmingly long and hard that I just didn't even want to bother with it anymore. By the time the papers would have processed for me to drop accounting, I probably would be too late into the semester and I would be behind in the classes I was trying to get into. So I stuck with it and again, I managed to start off the course well and then I just completely gave up towards the end. In fact, I think I managed to get some 40s on quizzes and tests. Those came as big shocks to me, someone who was so used to normally getting pretty average to decent grades, but then it just sunk in. I was not made for this course not because I suck at it, which is true to some extent, but because I just have no interest in it.

I have no motivation to do well and while you'd think that with my grades being on the line and university applications on the way, I'd panic, but I just didn't give enough flying fucks to care.

Because I think I just about bore everyone with this long post, here is a video about not giving fucks:



Back to the story.

So, by the end of accounting in grade 12, I managed to get a pretty crappy mark. With the final project coming along, a presentation on an company's financial statement and a SWOT analysis, I was determined to kill it and I did. Bam, instant grade booster. Awesome presentation by yours truly. But the problem was still there. Assignments and projects are always easy grade boosters. They hardly show a person's true abilities since you're granted so much time to finish them and you have all the resources you need to fix and edit the mistakes until you're finished and you're proud of the final product. This can't be done on exams. When exams came rolling around, I pretty much blew it and ended up with a final of a low 70 in accounting. Again, you'd think I care, but I just didn't.

Back to the present. I am sitting in accounting class. Notebook open, pen ready to go. I decide to play on my phone. Maybe that wasn't the right approach. I'll just do my homework in class as he teaches. I still play on my phone. Then, I brought my laptop in. Open a new Word document. I go on Tumblr. The thing is, it's come to the point where I don't view my distractions for accounting as distractions anymore. The things I do to avoid accounting is just because I can no longer even care for this subject/course. On the other hand, if you put me down for a Legal Studies paper or a three hundred page reading for Psychology, I'd probably get distracted, but at the end of the day, I will do the work and I will aim to do my best. Why? Because I have interest in those subjects. They're absolutely fascinating to me and accounting is not.

While we're all subject to our own beliefs and interests, I just want to take a moment for me to share my views on accounting. If I offend any accountants out there, I am truly sorry and I apologize for this rant.

There are many reasons as to why I hate accounting. It really comes down to one point though that I'll expand on. I find it dull. I find the job of accounting to be extremely mundane and repetitive. How is it that I am supposed to be able to spend hours everyday focused on a set of numbers?  How is it that I feel like I'm the only one who's so bored by this? I cannot sit down, look at numbers, decide which number is relevant and which are not, and then add or subtract them to find the actual number I really need and then input them somewhere and it's just, for lack of better terms, ugh.

There's probably someone out there who probably sees the same thing I see in accounting, for Legal Studies. And to that I can only say: To each their own. What I find interesting, you might not and vice-versa. Bottom line is: In my honest opinion, accounting is annoying, boring, and makes me want to kick puppies.

Reason #3:
This reason accounts for the last 30% of why I failed that accounting midterm. 

The midterm was absolute bullshit.

Well, okay. I exaggerated that a little bit.

Everything I might have messed up on, aside from the preferred/common shares question, was completely my fault and I take responsibility for it. I was lazy and I didn't care for accounting, fine.

But that preferred/common shares question was 12 marks, buddy. If I was the only one who felt uncertain about that question, then I can say I deserved it. But after arriving home last night, I went on Facebook. On the Arts and Business Facebook group for my year, I found comments like:

"Ready to start praying for a bellcurve..."

"Eff praying...start petitioning!"

"So im not the only one..."

"We should all send him emails asking for an assignment as a mark booster, the hell with that midterm."

"It was mostly only the shares part that killed me. [...]" 

Given that those people probably still did better than I did, I still feel slightly better about myself.

I sincerely hope that there's a bellcurve of maybe 10%. Maybe he'll drop that question of the midterm? Or maybe he'll actually give us a make-up assignment? I will do a lot of things if my professor is willing to give me a higher grade or a chance to redeem myself.

And there you have it, folks. Why I hate accounting and why I think it's a stupid course.

I mean, no offense to accountants and stuff. We need y'all. It's just... this course and that job? Not for me.

Irony of this being my mom was an accountant. You know how they say the child usually follows the career path of one of their parents? nOPE. Pardon my while I become a lawyer, or a teacher, or something I feel passionate about. So yeah, now I'm just here waiting for my mark to come out, which is probably soon considering my professor and his TAs seem to mark at the speed of light. Sigh.

If you managed to actually read this far, I thank you for putting up with my long rant.

If you didn't:

TL;DR: Accounting sucks and I hate it. I probably failed my accounting midterm and I'm praying for a bellcurve or a chance to redeem myself. Burn, accounting, burn!


- Dee

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