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I'm going to fail accounting. It's all over. Oh, what am I going to do? I'm going to fail accounting. My life is over
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Oh, wait, I already passed accounting. I'm here to help you. Right. Welcome to Accounting How To. I'm your host, Carolyn Grimm
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That is Terrence there over my shoulder, and we are here to put the fun in accounting fundamentals
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Now, I've made a couple of videos before about how to pass accounting class and about how to study accounting
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and I'll link those in the description because they're helpful. But what if you're already in
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trouble? What if you didn't know that accounting how to the YouTube channel existed? What if you
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didn't know that? Horrors. Oh my gosh, how did you make it through this far? So I'm here to give you
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some tips on how to make things better for you, okay? So tip number one, everything in accounting
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is about building on a foundation. And that foundation is learned in the first one to four chapters
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in your financial accounting or principles of accounting class. Everything else builds on those first few chapters
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So it's really important that you have that foundation. And a lot of times when I see students
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getting into trouble in accounting, it's because they don't have that foundation
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So accounting isn't one of those courses where you can miss a chapter or mess up on a chapter and be fine moving forward. You've got
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to stop and really get that foundation down. So helpful resource for you. I have a playlist on my
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YouTube channel that's called How to Pass Accounting Class, and it goes through all of those basics
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videos for all of the basic concepts that you need to conquer before you can move on to chapters
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five and beyond. Tip number two, before you go to accounting class, the best thing you can do for
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yourself is to actually preview the material before you get there, right? So here's my textbook. Ready
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You ready to see this? See, I've got all of these little fancy things. So anyway, in the textbook
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at the back of it, there's going to be like a key concepts. If you preview the end of the chapter
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material, then when you go into class, you're not going to be going in there completely unfamiliar
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with the material. It's going to sound familiar to you. And then as the professor talks about it, it's going to sound more familiar
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You going to start to put the pieces together And then when you reading the textbook you going to see that there another layer there So what you doing is you continuing to build on that foundation And I just want to mention for those of you who saw my video about the textbook cabal right here
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Carl Warren, I'm telling you, it's a thing. The next tip I have for you is to open the book and actually read the words
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look at the illustrative problems in it. And I say that, you know, kind of jokingly, but
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it's the number one problem that I have in my accounting classes is my students don't read
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the textbook. I'm not sure how everybody expects to learn accounting. Apparently, it's going to be
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transmitted electronically from the book into your brain? I don't know. But the textbook is
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critical for accounting. It's not something you can just skim over. You've got to actually
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delve into it because it's going to show you like examples of the things that you're going to be
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doing on the homework and the quiz. And it's giving you those opportunities to build your skills. And
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that's what accounting is all about. The next tip is for you to take things out of the textbook
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and look for ways that they're happening in the real world. Now, if you work in accounting
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which a lot of my students do, that's a little easier. But if it's a completely foreign thing
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for you and you don't have any idea how this whole accounting thing works in the real world
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that's okay. You can start to make those connections. For example, if you are learning
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about inventory, LIFO and FIFO and average cost. When you go to the grocery store, you're standing
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in front of the toothpaste on the shelves. You can be looking at that going, okay, they bought the one
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in the front, the first end for one price, and they bought the one at the back, the last end
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for a different price. And you can start to make those connections. Or if you see a delivery van
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drive by, you can look at it and think, huh, I wonder what kind of depreciation they're using
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for that. Are they using straight line depreciation or double declining balance depreciation? So
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anytime you can make those connections in the real world, it helps to solidify your understanding
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The next tip is to focus on what you don't understand. There are going to be things that
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you like oh yeah I totally get that I get it I don need to talk about this anymore Debits on the left credits on the right normal balances I good with those Whatever you don understand
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that's where you need to focus your attention. Now, how do you know what you don't understand
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Well, if you get it wrong on the homework, that's a clue. Or if your professor says something in
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class and you're like, I don't know. I totally don't know what that meant. I do not know. Write
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it down. Look it up. Find a video about it. You can figure it out. But what you can't do and expect
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to do well is just kind of go, okay, I don't understand that. I'm moving on. Because in
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accounting, again, there's a foundation and we build on that. The next tip is to listen to the
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professor in general, but specifically if they say something like, this would make a great test
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question, right? I say things like this to my students all the time. If we're reviewing for an
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exam, I will say, this will be on the exam. I'm not even subtle about it. And here's the way to do it
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and they still sometimes will get it wrong. So when a professor says something like this would
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make a great test question, or you really should know this one, or make sure you pay attention to
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those are all clues that that's going to be on the test. Now, let's say you do homework
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or you take a test, and you get something wrong. So what do you do then? Do you just like crumple
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the paper up and, you know, try to shoot a basket with it? Or do you go back and try to figure out
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what you did wrong? Because if you go back and you try to figure it out, you're like, I didn't
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understand the question or I misread it or whatever. Go back and figure out what the problem was. And
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if you can't figure it out on your own, ask your professor because that's what we get paid the big
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bucks for, okay? We're there to help you to succeed. Now, here's the most important point
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This one's going to be on the test, she said, winking. Your professor is your best resource
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Number one, if you have a question, you don't understand something, go directly to your
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professor. Send them an email. Call them. Follow them down the hall asking them questions
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Follow them into the bathroom. I don care Find a way to talk to your professor Usually professors are great and they love to answer students questions They love to help Sometimes you get a dud
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I totally understand. I get it. I've met a few in my life
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But if your professor can't answer your question, ask another professor who teaches the same classes
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If your college has a tutoring center, go ask a tutor. Ask another student that you know who's taken the class before and understands the material
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But you have more resources than just those. And those are great resources
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You also have the entire internet ready for you to go and ask a question
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So you could actually find perhaps a YouTube channel that's all about accounting how-to
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I know, right? Now here's the thing. if you want to ask me a question, I will answer it. All you got to do is drop it in the comments
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I won't tell you what the answer to your homework is, but I will help you understand if you have a
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question. Okay. So anytime, any video, drop a comment and I will see it and I will do my best
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to either point you to a resource that will help you or to answer the question. Okay. Is that a deal
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we're clear here you ask and I'll answer okay all right so if you are struggling in your accounting
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class it's okay it's okay to struggle while you're learning it's not fun but it is okay it's part of
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the learning process it's like learning how to walk you didn't just get up one day and start
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walking across the floor you fell down a few times and that's what learning is so I want to leave you
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with this. There are hundreds of thousands of us who have taken accounting classes and lived to
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tell about it. We're out here. We're your people. We know what you're going through. You can do this
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You can learn the material, but you may need to learn how to learn in a different way. And what
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you'll find is that when you do figure out what the best way for you to learn accounting is
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you're going to be able to apply that skill to every one of your other classes
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And I'll leave you with one more thing. I double dog dare you to do well at accounting
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Don't make me go to the triple dog dare. I will. Until next time, stay balanced, my friends
