NTU NBS: Year 3 Semester 1

Year 3 Semester 1

Time flies! I would be in my last semester next semester. The first semester of Year 3 was still manageable. I guess the main reason is that I’ve managed to clear my Strategic Management module during my summer exchange. As such, I’ve only took 2 core and 2 electives this semester.

AC2105 Accounting for Decision Making & Control (CORE - 4AU)

Course Format: 

Online Assessments (5%)

Class Participation (7%)

Mid Terms (10%)

Seminar Presentation (8%)

Management Meeting (20%)

Final Examination - open book (50%)

Attained Score: 

Online Assessments (A+)

Class Participation (B)

Mid Terms (A+)

Seminar Presentation (A-)

Management Meeting (B+)

Final Grade: A+

This module focuses on management accounting. There are 4 themes to this module:

1. Framework for Decision Making and Control (Agency theory; Organisational Architecture Framework; Porter’s strategy concepts)

2. Cost Planning and Decision Making (CVP analysis; decision making calculations) 

3. Operational Control (Budgetary planning; variance analysis)

4. Management Control (Responsibility accounting; management compensation; transfer pricing; sustainability and performance management).

This module seems like a MBA module to me though. There was less teaching involved and more discussion/presentations/role plays. Most of the concepts were self taught and the classes don’t really provide much information to learn from. Rather, it’s more focused on the application of concepts acquired before class. Thus, it’s quite important to prepare beforehand, if not, one will get quite lost during classes. There were some interesting aspects of this module, e.g. transfer pricing, which appeals to me. I would say this module’s difficulty level seems similar to year 2 standard.  

The management meeting was the main highlight of this module. It involves teams taking on roles of different department. A pre-meeting video is required prior to the meeting; a lot of editing have to be done for the video which I feel that it’s quite troublesome. Preparation for the meeting would have to be done and it’s somehow very difficult to coordinate as the actual meeting comprises of 4 different teams. After the meeting which is 2 hours long, a reflection report has to be submitted within 24 hours.

AC3103 Accounting Analysis & Equity Valuation (CORE - 4AU)

Course Format: 

Class Participation (15%)

Quiz (10%)

Individual Take Home Written Assignment (10%)

Group Written Assignment (15%)

Final Examination - open book (50%)

Attained Score: 

Individual Take Home Written Assignment (A-)

Final Grade: A+

This module is my first AC3XXX module and it’s really hard! There’s mainly 2 parts to this module, the first part (1^st 4 weeks) covered the various financial accounting theories (e.g. positive accounting theory, earnings management, value relevance) and the second part was on fundamental analysis.

The first part was rather dry but I’ve find it quite interesting as it touches on concepts such as capital market incentives to manage earnings and some aspects of behavioral finance. The second part was more quantitative in nature as it introduces the 4 steps to valuation. As for the course components, there was a case study presentation to be done as part of the class participation. I find the level of difficulty for the case studies to be rather high as we are using Harvard Business School case studies for this module and there’s a lot of computation to be done for most of the case studies. The quiz tests the financial accounting theories and concepts that was covered in the first 4 weeks. As for the individual written assignment, the topic for my semester was to analyse the effects of an increase in a company’s financial leverage on its ROE and share price and the applications of some financial leverage measures. It differs from semester to semester and sometimes it’s quantitative or qualitative inclined. Mine was more qualitative inclined though. The group written assignment was demanding. It involves extensive application of the 4 steps of equity valuation to determine the intrinsic share price of 2 chosen companies. Anyway, there’s a lot of work and computations to be done. My group’s final report has a supporting spreadsheet with over 20 tabs and that’s crazy and not fun. The final examination was really challenging. It’s also a combination of quantitative and qualitative reasoning. The questions in the finals are relatively standard though (EPS calculation, Accounting adjustments and ROE advanced DuPont decomposition, and RI model calculation).