Accounting Associate Degree Curriculum Details

• Demonstrate effective written and interpersonal communication skills
• Demonstrate a high level of inquiry, analytical, and problem-solving skills
• Demonstrate effective quantitative skills
• Demonstrate computer and information literacy
• Demonstrate an understanding of the liberal arts, natural sciences, and social sciences
• Demonstrate an understanding of the principles and processes involved in various functional areas and the need for collaboration among the different functions
• Complete the accounting cycle and create and analyze financial statements to ensure that they are accurate and comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures.
• Explain the key issues of internal control of cash in balance and cash flow statements and external financial reporting
• Create, organize, and maintain financial records
• Discuss and apply ethical and legal standards to the business environment
• Demonstrate an understanding of economic and financial markets and the business economy
• Demonstrate how to assess financial data and make best-practices recommendations to management

Objectives:

• Understand how to use your Student Portal, including your My Homepage and My Courses pages.
• Access the Penn Foster Community and use it to find answers.
• Connect with Penn Foster on various social media sites.
• Examine your individual life goals and the steps needed to fulfill them.
• Recognize how your personal financial goals mirror that of most businesses.
• Use time management skills to make the most of your day.
• Determine personal financial goals.
• Set up a typical budget.
• Explain why creative thinking, research, planning, gathering resources, and production and marketing are vital for the start-up and maintenance of a business.

Objectives:

• Search the Internet more effectively.
• Get tips about search engines and reliable websites.
• Learn how to search libraries and other information centers for important, useful information.

Objectives:

• Understand the principles of business ethics and basic economics.
• Compare the different types of business ownership.
• Describe the basics of organizational structure.
• Identify the differences between management and leadership.
• Understand the importance of information technology in today’s business environments.

Objectives:

• Understand artistic media.
• Identify historical periods and artistic movements.
• Explain the roles of the artist and the viewer.

Objectives:

• Use percentages, discounts, and interest formulas effectively.
• Analyze present worth and sinking funds.
• Understand how to buy in installments and price merchandise.
• Explain depreciation, insurance, equations, and formulas.
• Discuss investments and statistics.

Objectives:

• Solve problems that involve the time value of money.
• Perform a basic analysis of financial statements.
• Describe the components of financial assets.
• Explain the role of a financial intermediary.
• Describe the role of security markets.
• List the components of financial decision making.

Objectives:

• Create, edit, and illustrate Microsoft® Word™ documents.
• Apply formulas and functions to large data sets in Microsoft® Excel.®
• Incorporate useful charts and graphs to summarize data.
• Add, delete, sort, and lay out table data.
• Create presentations in Microsoft® PowerPoint® using advanced tools, tables, and charts.

Objectives:

• Understand cost classifications as applied to preparing financial statements, predicting cost behavior, and making decisions
• Understand the flow of cost in job-order costing and use activity-based absorption costing to compute product costs
• Understand the flow of process costing, computing the cost per equivalent unit using the weighted-average method and FIFO method and allocating department costs using the direct and step-down methods
• Explain how changes in activity affect contribution margin and net operating income and examine cost-volume-profit relationships, such as margin of safety and break-even points
• Explain how variable costing differs from absorption costing and prepare income statements using the different approaches as tools for management
• Understand activity-based costing and how it differs from a traditional costing system
• Understand budgets, the process used to create budgets, and the preparation of various kinds of budgets
• Compute and record various variances
• Understand and compute various performance measurements
• Prepare differential analysis as a key to decision making
• Evaluate calculations for capital budgeting decisions
• Prepare a statement of cash flows using the direct and indirect methods and compute free cash flow
• Compute and interpret financial ratios

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Managerial Accounting

Objectives:

• Effectively use free writing and brainstorming.
• Perfect your ability to edit and revise your writing.
• Apply techniques for getting the reader’s attention.
• Write descriptive essays, first-person narratives, reflective essays, persuasive essays, and effective thesis statements.

Objectives:

• Define and correctly use business terms.
• Explain the importance of communication.
• Identify the steps of managerial decision making.
• Explain the relevance of the basic skills required by managers.
• Describe major components of various management perspectives.
• Discuss the ever-increasing employee diversity and the management activities required for the changing workforce.

HUM104 - Music Appreciation

This course will allow you to understand and appreciate the art of music.

Objectives:

• Identify the basic principles of music theory, including melody, harmony, dynamics, and timbre.
• Name the main types of musical instruments.
• Distinguish various styles of music.
• Identify influential composers of various periods of musical history.

ENG115 - Introduction to Literature 

This course will allow you to develop your critical thinking skills and broaden your knowledge of literature.

Objectives:

• Identify themes and forms of literature.
• Define the main genres of literature—poetry, fiction, and drama.

Objectives:

• Identify the basic function of economics in our society
• Examine various economic tradeoffs that people face
• Explain the laws of supply and demand
• Use the concept of elasticity to explain changes in a market
• Discuss the pros and cons of trade restrictions
• Calculate and interpret the unemployment rate and the labor-force participation rate
• Describe the notion of deadweight loss and its relevance to taxes
• Draw and interpret short-run and long-run Phillips curves
• Explain why economists focus on GDP, inflation, and unemployment when assessing economic health
• Describe how comparative advantage and specialization affect international trade
• Describe how differences between world prices and domestic prices prompt exports and imports
• Describe how changes in income affect consumption and saving