So, you might have heard that accounting is the language of business. So, it's the language in which managers communicate the firm's financial and economic information to those both inside and outside the organisation, such as shareholders. In terms of managing a business, Accounting is what enables decision makers to understand how resources, such as labour, materials and overheads, and all the other things that organisations require are being used in the business, and to assess how and whether these resources are creating value for the business and its stakeholders. What's really important is that all organisations, whether they are for-profit, multinational enterprises, entrepreneurial start-ups, charities, or government entities, they're all concerned about the use of limited resources. So that is, organisations in every industry and of every type and form require the expertise of accountants, and at UTS, I think we have one of the best accounting programs in Australia. Accounting is a highly desirable industry at the moment, so it's a great option for anyone wanting to get into business. Okay, I'll talk a little bit about our accounting programs specifically. So, we have three options that you can enrol into it as part of the postgraduate accounting offering at UTS. There's the standard master's program, which is 12 subjects, so the one in the middle of the screen. So, the typical structure is that you take four subjects a semester, you start by taking four core subjects that provide the foundational knowledge of business. So, these are accounting, finance, economics, and law. This really sets you up for then going into more nuanced subjects regarding different aspects of accounting, and its specialisations such as tax costing, planning, control, audit, and business valuation to name a few. Now, you could also choose the extended program, and this is where you have one additional semester. So, whereas the standard Master of Professional Accounting, that's three semesters, so up to a year and a half, the extended program is up to two years. And what you do here is that you do all the core subjects of the standard Master of Professional Accounting, plus you choose four additional electives, and these are some of my favourite subjects. So, in these electives, including the really cool sounding subject called forensic accounting, accounting information systems, enterprise accounting, enterprise systems, and international accounting. I actually recommend this extended program because for me, these electives are some of the most interesting and contemporarily relevant subjects and you really extend your knowledge and skills in areas that are in demand by employers. Finally, there's the graduate certificate. So, if you just want to extend your current understanding of business and the role of accounting and business, this is where you can start your journey. You might just want to update your skills and knowledge, or you may want to see what specialisation is right for you. So of course, we want to make sure that accounting is the right choice for you, but the Graduate Certificate allows you to get a general understanding of core discipline areas in business, accounting being one of them, and you complete this in one semester at UTS, and then use that to continue on with the Master of Professional Accounting or another UTS degree. All of those subjects count towards the MPA (Master of Professional Accounting), as well as other courses at UTS. So here you can see the range of subjects or the core subjects that are part of the Master of Professional Accounting. So, as I mentioned, the first four, they're really the foundational subjects that provide you the basic overview of core aspects that anyone in business needs to understand. And then you go into the more specialist accounting domains: management accounting, costing, tax, audit, you learn about data analytics and quantitative skills, of course, that's really important for accountants, as well as the rise of data analytics. So, we're prepping you for that, to be able to communicate with people involved in data science and data analytics in the firm. Then you finish up with the Capstone subject: Business Analysis and Valuations. What we mean by Capstone is, it's a subject where you draw all your knowledge throughout the course and apply it to a major project. Now, many of these subjects have a whole variety of different assessment methods to make them engaging and practically relevant. So, for instance, in the subject that I normally teach, Management Planning Control, we have an assignment where you actually evaluate the planning and control systems, such as the performance management systems and incentive structures, of a real-world organisation to really give you that hands-on understanding about how accounting operates out there in the real world. And I'm sure many of you are interested then in professional accreditation bodies and professional recognition. So, we are associated with all the major professional accounting associations such as CPA Australia, the Chartered Accountants of Australia and New Zealand, the Institute of Public Accountants, as well as several other ones. Now, what this means is that once you complete the Master of Professional Accounting at UTS, you will have sufficient knowledge and skills to meet the entry requirements for these professional bodies. So, most accountants, in practice will have an undergraduate or postgraduate degree in accounting, plus an additional certification by one of the professional accounting bodies. This is another way that at UTS, we really promote lifelong learning, and professional accreditation is an extension of your knowledge and skills learned here at UTS. And usually, you undertake this as you work in a professional accounting setting. So, the skills and knowledge you have at UTS will be enough for you to get engaged in real-world accounting, and then you'll extend these as part of your professional recognition. So, one of the great benefits of professional recognition is that many of these recognitions are known internationally around the world. So, you'll have the ability to be able to travel and work not only in Australia, in the largest and most prominent organisations, but you'll also have the opportunity to work overseas with an internationally recognised qualification.
How is the course delivered? Obviously, COVID has caused some disruption and some changes. So how is the course delivered? Is it online? Is it on campus? Is it a mixture? And I suppose there's the "what's happening now"? And what do we think might it look like in the future as well?
Yeah, absolutely. So, it's always hard to say what's going to happen in the future, given the circumstances of the past couple of years. Firstly, I'll say that students have different learning preferences and at UTS, we do our best to cater to the learning needs of the students within our program. So whenever possible, we'll provide multiple offerings from this point forward. That means that where possible, we'll try and provide the option to have both either online learning through online means, and through face-to-face classes. And we've worked closely with learning designers here at UTS, as well as external designers to develop online versions of the courses that provide as close to the same experience as face-to-face classes. The academics that are part of the Master of Professional Accounting have worked extremely hard over the last year and a half or two years or so to develop these online versions of the courses. Now, in saying that, during 2022, we are currently offering mostly online versions of our subjects. We will move back to face to face at some point and the most likely time will be at the start of 2023. But as I mentioned, as long as there are sufficient students in the course that want both, either online or face to face, then we will do our best to meet the student’s demands for those different delivery methods.
And another common question we get is about who this course is suited to. Now sometimes people might think to undertake study to progress their current career, you know, they've already got some experience in accounting, or perhaps even some study, whereas other people might be thinking it's time for a career change, and accounting is what's for me. How would these courses suit both of those kinds of students?
Yeah. So, we have both types of students come through the course. So in my subject, I've had both types of students talk to me and they have different perspectives and obviously, are in the course for different reasons, but I'll note that no matter whether you intend to be an accountant or you want to go into business but not necessarily be an accountant, professionally, it's still a critical foundation for a successful career in business. So, no matter whether you are primarily interested in human resources or marketing, or the R&D side of business, accounting is relevant to all aspects of business. So, you have to understand accounting, if you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to be able to manage your resources. So, if you're in marketing, you need to understand how to effectively budget and develop a return on investments for the business. And this is what you will learn about in the Master of Professional Accounting, whether you want to extend your business understanding through taking accounting, or you want to pursue accounting as a career, the Master of Professional Accounting is perfect for both types of individuals.
Now, the next one is around a few other courses in a way. And that is, obviously there are a few options if you're wanting to study accounting. You've got the MBA, with a major in accounting, you've obviously got the Master of Accounting that we're talking about tonight. But you could also look at perhaps finance and accounting with a financial analysis course. So, I suppose what would be the main benefit of studying the Master of Accounting, as opposed to some of the other options that we have?
Yeah, certainly a good question. So, if you know that you want to pursue an accounting career or career in the accounting field, then the Master of Professional Accounting is the one for you. You don't need to look around just enrol in the MPA and consider also the extension course. Now, you can also major in accounting as part of the Master of Business Administration. So here, you'll be able to major in accounting, as well as choose another discipline such as marketing, human resources, finance, economics, etc. The MBA is probably most beneficial if you have a few years of work experience, and you want to move into managerial roles and use accounting as a platform for understanding how businesses operate. Now, I've mentioned that if you're pursuing a career in business, but unsure about what specialty you want to focus on, then the graduate certificate is a great way to start. So, you're not going to lose any time whatsoever, you'll be able to do the four courses in a semester, and then you'll be able to then choose the discipline that you want to focus on. Now, if you already have accounting as part of a prior course, then you might choose something like the Master of Financial Analysis. So, this is a blend of accounting and finance. So, a little bit of overlap if you've studied accounting before, it's focused on a career in a profession called financial analyst. So, investment banks and financial analysts are one of the core groups, and essentially, they're looking at trying to value and evaluate financial investments. So, such as investments in major projects, the acquisition of additional firms, and purchases of shares, both on the demand and supply sides for investment funds. And so, this is a really important area of finance, where accounting information becomes really important because you have to understand the accounting information that's produced by firms in order to make these investment decisions.
So really it depends on your area of interest, and perhaps your career ideas and goals as well as what you've already studied as to what might be the best fit for you.
Absolutely. I mean, at UTS we're all about trying to find the best fit for students, and that's exactly what these types of webinars are for.
Well, and I guess on the topic of career prospects, for someone who completes the Master of Accounting what might some of the job options or prospects be for someone that's completed this course?
The demand for accountants is high, and it's usually high. There are a few periods every now and again, where the demand for any type of employee goes down. But generally, accountants are in demand. It's one of the areas where we constantly have a skills shortage in Australia. And you may think that, during or after a crisis or economic recession, there would be reduced demand for accountants, but this is not the case at all. In fact, accountants are needed, especially in times of economic crisis, in order to ensure that organisations use their limited resources efficiently and effectively to try and emerge on the other side in as good a shape as possible. So accounting is really one of those areas that you know, if you want a stable profession, you know, like accounting is one of those where you tend to have pretty secure employment irrespective of economic conditions. Now the other thing is that of course everyone wants to know about is your what's the reward, especially as a financial reward. There are many non-financial and intrinsic rewards to doing accounting, I think. But one of the good things about accounting is that the starting pay for accountants is pretty good. And it's comparable, at least to all the other major business specialisations. One thing with accounting, though, is that the long-term potential compensation can be considerable. And especially so if you go and earn your professional accreditation, your earnings immediately increase once you have that, and also your opportunities for employment, both here in Australia, as well as internationally increase significantly as well. So just as an example, if you work at one of the auditing partnership firms for 10 or 15 years, you might get to the point where you could become a partner. And once you're at that point, you're looking at $500,000, as a minimum salary. So, the rewards are there for those that want to pursue it.
I might have to consider a career change myself. I'm sure that all comes with a lot of responsibility, though, so. And well, I guess, we've been talking, I guess what happens after the course. But maybe we should talk a little bit about the actual course itself. What sort of, I guess experience might people expect, in terms of the course work and assessments you know, is there group work? Are there exams? Are there essays to write? What sort of things make up some of the subjects that they would be undertaking?
So, at UTS, in general, we have a learning model that really emphasises diversity. So, with assessments, for instance, we have a wide range of assessments that we conduct throughout the course. So, we know exams are still part of assessing outcomes. But we go beyond exams. Even within exams, they're very diverse in the way we assess students, but there are consulting projects, simulations, business reports, presentations, and mock interviews, among others, that we use throughout the course to try and cover a broad range of skills and knowledge required by accountants. So increasingly, it's not just knowing debits and credits and the technical side of accounting, it's being able to communicate and make decisions and judgments that really matters for professional accounting, and their role in organisations. So, we place a lot of emphasis on those softer skills that are becoming increasingly important and demanded by organisations. So, we're always, as you mentioned, Jennifer, at the start, that we're very closely tied to practice and changes in practice. So as the requirements for professional accountants change, we also change the way that we teach and assess our students in the course.
Now, this might be a silly question, because, you know, potentially, if you're interested in accounting, you're probably not too frightened of numbers. But what if maths isn't your strong point? Would you still be able to do this course, survive this course, and thrive in this course? Awesome, hopefully, that's good to know for people out there. Now, another question we get a lot, and I think we've mentioned this already, that we do, you know, take into account a lot of people who are undertaking a master’s are working full time, you know, have family and social commitments. So roughly speaking, what would you recommend in terms of how much time would someone need to sort of set aside to do this course and I suppose a lot of people kind of think, you know, what's the bare minimum I could do but also, a lot of recommendation is this isn't something to rush through and just knock over. But this is something to enjoy and, you know, get the most out of the experience.
Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the common misconceptions with accounting is that you need to have some high-level maths, in order to do it. In fact, we have a broad range of individuals that come through the Master of Professional Accounting, some with very strong mathematics abilities, and others where maths is not their strong suit. And both types of students can thrive in the course as well as in accounting, professionally. Accounting is very multidisciplinary and requires multidimensional skillsets. And not everyone has to have every skill. So, within an accounting team, you might have some individuals that are very technically focused, and then you have others that can think laterally, others that have better qualitative and communicative skills. And all of those individuals are important to the accounting and finance team within an organisation.
Absolutely. A university is an experience. I really encourage students not to focus on just being an outcome as a means to an outcome, it's really something that if you engage with university, it's an experience that you'll remember for the rest of your life. My best friends come from my university days. And I often think back to my university times as being some of the best times of my life. So, there's that side of it just being part of university life, it really adds a lot to your experience. Now, in terms of your time commitment, of course, different people apply different amounts of time, depending on various individual and circumstantial factors. But our recommendation is that for each subject, we have about three hours face to face time. And we recommend two hours of outside time for every hour of face-to-face time. So that means three hours face to face, and six hours outside, which means nine hours per subject. And if you do a full load, that's four subjects times nine hours. So, you should treat it as a full-time commitment if you become a full-time student. Many students combine this with part-time work, family commitments, and all the other things that life throws with throws to us, but it's always that when you start, if you haven't done University for a while, or you haven't been to university before, there's always a transition period. But we have a lot of resources at UTS that you can draw upon in your early days to work out that balance and what works best for you. So, you know, everyone's different, and how one person wants to balance their life is not necessarily the same as what someone else might consider a balance in their life. But we do encourage people to engage timewise a significant amount to get the most out of university. So, I mean, these are skills and knowledge that are practically relevant that when you go into the workforce, what we teach, it should be immediately applicable to your role. So, it's not just dry theory, will be teaching you practically relevant skills and knowledge.
They might be able to do some of those additional hours in your day-to-day work. Who knows? And I've certainly heard students talk about, you know, when they've got perhaps more background in a certain subject area, they don't need to spend as many hours on it. And likewise, it might be an area either they're not familiar with, or that they particularly enjoy, and they choose to spend even more time than what's recommended on it. The other thing I'd remind people of is that flexibility, we have to do part-time study. So, you can opt to do one or two subjects in the course of the semester, depending on what your circumstances might be. And you can vary that semester to semester. So, you know, you might have a period of time where two subjects are definitely manageable. And in the next session, you might think you know, what works picked up, or I've got a lot of social commitments, or whatever it might be. So, I might drop to one subject or even pause for a semester and pick back up all of those options. And it's not as if once you've hit the go button, you're locked in for the whole time as is. Definitely have a lot of flexibility there.
I should also say that full-time means two semesters a year and semesters are 12 weeks with two one-week breaks as well as the one week of final exams. So less than two-thirds of the year, where you need to dedicate your time to study, and then for the rest of the year, you may want to just relax. Enjoy your life as a uni student. But there are also opportunities to engage in work. And we have the UTS Careers office which can help you find some summer and vacation work if you want to get work experience, as well as there are plenty of professional and industry events that get held at UTS
You did mention just then, in terms of working with real organisations, are there opportunities within the course to work with real organisations or perhaps on real problems or examples from organisations?
Yeah, so several of our subjects have assessments or activities where you work on real-life organisations. And sometimes they're anonymized. And other times we get actually the practitioners in from organisations to tell you about the problem and then you are tasked with writing a report or investigating that problem. We don't have any internships so it's pretty condensed our course, we're teaching you pretty much exactly what you need to know to get out there into the real world and start practising as a professional accountant but as I mentioned, the UTS Careers office can help you find summer and vacation work experience, and we also have plenty of professional and industry-based activities and recruitment sessions at UTS. So, there's no shortage of options if you want to actually do work during your MPA.
Okay. And I guess one final question. Do you have any top tips for success for students who are thinking of undertaking these courses?
Yeah, absolutely. So my top tip is just to engage with university life, as we mentioned, university is an experience so there is obviously an outcome that many students want to get, they want to get the degree or they want to get really high marks, but that's only part of going to university and if you engage in your subjects and you enjoy your life as part of a university student, you know, those marks and outcomes are going to come. So, I really encourage students to get engaged with university life, and join clubs and societies at UTS, which we have many of and have been very active as well during the pandemic. So even if you're overseas or you start your degree off overseas, there are still many activities and events that you can engage in, even from a distance but hopefully, we'll see many of you on campus face to face if you do decide to do the Master of Professional Accounting.
Yeah, we're certainly looking forward to that. But yeah, I guess that networking piece with other students is another great benefit of joining the course and being with you know, like-minded students, and yeah, I guess that's one of the big differences between PG and UG study is that everyone for PG is you know, really interested and passionate about the area they're choosing to study as opposed to sometimes UG people they're just trying to figure out what might be for them. So, you've got a really engaged group of students at that postgraduate level.
