4. Te ability to conduct basic research once the situation has been explained to help arrive at the proper resolution.


Finally, and perhaps most importantly, accounting programs need to teach students how to fail. People who work in accounting have chosen a difficult profession that requires mental toughness. If you go into this line of work, you will fail at a lot of the things you do. I fail all the time. Accounting firms, of course, do their best to provide checks and balances to make sure that if someone fails, those failures do not harm the client. However, failures can and do happen. It is a fact of life and students should be exposed to failure early and often in a way they can learn to grow from it. Many college accounting students are highly motivated. Tey’ve never really failed at anything. When they get out of school, they are completely and totally unprepared to deal with and learn from failure. When they get out of school, the reality is that they are about to fail—a lot. Tey are going to finish projects (if


they are lucky) and get review comments.


Sometimes they will get a lot of them. Tat may be disappointing. I’ve seen this happen to many new staff and, for many of them, it is devastating. It takes months for some to recover, and some never really do. I had a class in graduate school where


every tax return we did was reviewed and received review comments by another student. However, as I’ve talked to others, I’ve learned this experience is not common. Teaching students how to give and receive feedback while still in school is probably one of the biggest missed opportunities for accounting education programs. I believe accounting programs need to


be more proactive in building a framework to help students solve accounting problems. But, most importantly, accounting educators need to help their students learn to be better, more well-prepared human beings ready to face the modern business world—a world where they will fail sometimes. However, if the education system serves them well, that failure will teach them the courage to get right back up and press onward.


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888-847-1040 x2 Wade Holmes Wade@APS.net May/June 2018 CPAFOCUS 9


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