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:

• Define the language, visual elements, and principles of design of art
• Identify two-dimensional media
• Identify three-dimensional media
• Explain the evolution of art from ancient Mediterranean cultures through eighteenth century Europe
• Identify features and popular examples of art throughout the history of African, Asian, Pacific, and American cultures
• Compare the genres of the Modern and Postmodern eras of art from around the world

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Living with Art, 11th Edition

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

In this course, you'll understand how to appreciate music by learning about the roles of the composer and the listener, the principles of music theory and instrumentation, musically significant historical periods, and varying styles of music.

Objectives:

• Identify the building blocks of music a composer can use to create a piece, such as rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, form, and timbre
• Explain the evolution of Western music through history, from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century
• Differentiate between the music of the baroque era and the musical styles of previous time periods
• Recognize the major characteristics of classical music, including form, melody, and instrumentation
• Discuss the musical trends and innovations that occurred during the romantic era
• Trace the evolution of American popular music in the twentieth century
• Recognize the influence of world music on modern Western composition

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Experience Music, Fourth Edition

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