<p>I'm a SCM/Operations major and I really want to have a strong background in one or the other. I was thinking that Accouting would be good for any major, especially operations. The problem is, I'm in Intermediate Acct right now and its hardly any statement analysis or decision making practice. It's essentially just reporting and constructing statements still. Plus, Intermediate Acct isn't required for SCM majors. I'm starting to think that adding some Finance courses would now be better instead? Actually studying statements, understanding cash flows, growth, budgeting....I just want everyone's opinions on what would best for studying supply chain.</p>
<p>Does your school offer an upper level financial statement analysis class?</p>
<p>What you want is a bit of a mix of both. Id suggest looking for a financial statement analysis class and also taking an intermediate managerial finance class (capital budgeting is a topic covered in this class).</p>
<p>Yeah, it’s not easy to get into though. You need to have the intermediate accounting done and it’s selective…I go to a big public and only 2 classes of 10 students each are available every semester.</p>
<p>Right now, I’m in the junior-level finance course that all majors have to take and that is the only pre-req for our managerial finance I and II. Usually only finc majors take it because it’s not easy and not required by other majors. Good idea though?</p>
<p>“The problem is, I’m in Intermediate Acct right now and its hardly any statement analysis or decision making practice. It’s essentially just reporting and constructing statements still.”</p>
<p>This was my experience as well. With accounting you really learn the how to report, but because of that, accounting majors often understand financial statements better. </p>
<p>In intermediate level finance courses, more focus is put onto decision making and forecasting.</p>
<p>Well, for my school, my opinion is that taking more accounting classes is actually more beneficial.</p>
<p>You can take advanced cost accounting, advanced taxation, international accounting, not-for-profit-accounting, enterprise resource management(accounting information systems class)… the list goes on.</p>
<p>Anyways, I live in California, they have recently raised the CPA requirements to 150 units. SO i need a whole semesters worth additional units, and I believe that taking more accounting classes is better than double majoring in accounting/finance. All the useful knowledge you will gain with those finance classes, you will gain with the accounting.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think I’m going to take the Managerial Finance I course. I emailed the advisor and said it covers alot of what I was asking about.</p>
<p>See, at my school I have to Intermediate Accounting before even attempting the cost accounting. What is covered in the Enterprise Resource Mgmt course?</p>
<p>Enterprise Resource Management is basically an SAP class. You learn about the accounting/finance functions of the system. It’s good experience, even if you don’t end up working with SAP because you are exposed to how a fully developed ERP system runs. Most organizations will have something similar.</p>
<p>We don’t have a managerial finance class, but that sounds good.</p>
<p>It will likely tend to revolve on the idea of managing wealth, while you will find that accounting classes focus on making a business’s cash flows understandable/efficient.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info everyone. I just wanted to add the opinions of several companies I talked to about this. I was actually surprised and this should help some SCM majors, because it is a relatively new major. </p>
<p>After a couple of minutes and when they got to my current coursework, I would work in that I was doing well in the finance course alot of kids are struggling in. That I am in Intermediate Accounting that isn’t required for operations management. Lastly on topic, that I was going to take cost and decision accounting and managerial finance. All of which, to “make my degree more quantitative” so I thought.</p>
<p>Last week, my school had a Retailing Career Fair for two days. Out of 5 companies I talk to, only Wal-Mart mentioned it as a big plus. Macy’s seemed impressed. Neiman Marcus, Nestle and Verizon couldn’t care less I would say.</p>
<p>This week, there was a business student council career fair that is definately the more prestigious of the two. The most positive feedback was definately from E&Y about adding finance to SCM. PepsiCo was too I think, even Bain and Co. was seemingly enthusiastic about the idea. Alot more though were more discouraging about it. Shell, GE, BP, Dell, Amazon.com and Haliburton said pretty much that finance wasn’t a good way to go. As well as most of the midsize consulting firms, which is were I ultimately want to work, almost all said that I should instead be focused on programming and two companies said something about platforms. lol</p>
<p>I actually had a luncheon with Chevron and a meet and greet with two people from KPMG and they weren’t that high on it either. They just seemed like they were pacifying that part and focusing on some of the leadership parts of my resume. Which isn’t exactly terrible, but I actually thought taking these harder classes would mean something…essentially now I am rethinking my decision again. Especially because Intermediate accounting isn’t exactly a picnic and it could be for nothing anyways. Any more input or adivice?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t take accounting or finance to make myself more marketable, I would take it to improve my own knowledge/skills/understanding. If the only reason your taking those classes is to impress employers, don’t. GENERALLY employers don’t dig into your degree to see what individual classes you took. Especially, don’t go around telling employers how your taking this finance class and doing better than everyone else. They probably have hundreds of applicants who aced that or a similar class.</p>
<p>The #1 thing employers are looking for is soft skills, hence them being interested in your leadership. However, since your “target” companies reccommended programing, that is probably where you should put your electives.</p>
<p>I definately wasn’t trying to be petty about it. So I think I won’t do that anymore. I will say I am taking these classes Fifty-Fifty for the understanding and then for marketability. It has just been a shock that essentially some employers don’t care, when its notorious that Acct/Finc majors are in more demand. I thought adding those elements would be good for everyone. Lol</p>
<p>Yeah, I think I should stop fighting it I guess. It’s just if I wanted to take the programming classes I would have picked MIS…with regards to the smaller consulting firms, I knew that most would be IS but I thought there would be more of a place for operations/SCM than I saw. Especially when on their website, I read their services include business processes and strategy. Am I just seeing this all wrong, or was it just one or two of the firms being mostly centered around IT?</p>