<p>I've heard that Intermediate Accounting is a very difficult course. I would like to prepare for the course ahead of time through self-study, if possible. Can anyone recommend a good set of books that I can buy and use to study Intermediate Accounting before I actually take the course?</p>
<p>Please be detailed with your recommendations (title, author, edition, if possible).</p>
<p>If anyone knows a website that can help me to study in preparation for Intermediate Accounting, that would be helpful, also.</p>
<p>Thank you for your help.</p>
<p>go to your school’s bookstore</p>
<p>I would, but they don’t currently have any books for intermediate accounting. The course isn’t currently offered.</p>
<p>Also, I’d like a recommendation from someone who knows firsthand what is good and what isn’t.</p>
<p>Assuming you can get the full bundle, getting Intermediate Accounting by Kieso seems like a good place to start. Mine came with solutions to everything(you certainly need that if you are going to try and self-teach to begin with) on a CD(1200 page PDF file). It also has some other disc I haven’t looked at and I think there’s an online thing. I don’t really need that since I am in class 4 hours a week and do homework and reading in preparation. But a self-taught guy will. </p>
<p>Personally I think I could teach myself a lot just from this book, but I’m good at teaching myself. If you are just enthusiastic but learn better from lectures and whatnot I’d be somewhat hesitant to try to teach yourself, since if you find it too difficult you might decide it’s not the thing for you even if you might be great at it under normal circumstances. Intermediate Acct 1 is the weed-out course here and I think just about everywhere. the lower division Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting(or Principles I and II or whatever it is that you may have taken) are dumbed down because most schools force all business majors to take it and there is pressure to not have it be a terrible grind for marketing majors and whatnot.</p>
<p>Jonahrubin,</p>
<p>Thank you for your recommendation. I’ve read that Intermediate Accounting by Kieso is a sort of standard in books. I checked it out on Amazon.com, and the reviews seem to be good. The reviews on Amazon also mention Intermediate Accounting by Spiceland. Would anyone happen to know if Intermediate Accounting by Spiceland is helpful, too?</p>
<p>Thank you for your time.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Spiceland the book, however when I was in your shoes trying to get a little bit ahead, I did find an online syllabus and powerpoint presentations for a class using it:</p>
<p>[BUS</a> 282 Intermediate Accounting](<a href=“http://voyager.dvc.edu/faculty/gpieroni/bus2828887.htm]BUS”>http://voyager.dvc.edu/faculty/gpieroni/bus2828887.htm)</p>
<p>This might help provide you a little structure and the powerpoints can highlight key points for you I guess. I went through half the powerpoints and I think I learned something from them. I’ve never seen the actual book though so I can’t help you there.</p>
<p>jonahrubin,</p>
<p>Thanks again for the information. I’d seen that website before on one of my searches. The syllabus scares me, though, with all of those requirements. The powerpoint slides don’t seem to be very detailed.</p>
<p>I guess I just wish the intermediate accounting class could just be easy. Why does it have to be so hard?</p>
<p>I have the Spiceland book updated 4th edition and I really like it. I have friends who have the Kieso book and I believe Spiceland is better. It all depends on what book your school uses. In my class they also make us look up different pronouncements (which are a big portion of the class material) on FASB.org or FARS.</p>
<p>luisg99,</p>
<p>I’ve ordered a used copy of Intermediate Accounting, Updated 4th Edition by Spiceland. I hope to be able to use it for self-study. I’ve read chapter 17 of the book on their website, and it seems the material is very difficult. I was wondering, how do you and your classmates consider the material? Is it difficult to you or is it easy?</p>
<p>My Intermediate Accounting professor is a long time Becker CPA instructor, CPA licensed in a number of states, CPA, & a professor at numerous colleges & universities. He mentioned that many schools including NYU (he is an accounting professor there) said they use Intermediate Accounting by Kieso. However, at my school, Baruch College, we are currently using Intermediate Accounting, 5th Edition by Spiceland. According to him Spiceland is a much better book than the Kieso. </p>
<p>But I think it’s best to ask a friend or even go to the Accounting department at your school and ask what book they plan to use for the upcoming semester.</p>
<p>simple10,</p>
<p>I hope my Intermediate Accounting teacher uses Spiceland, too. I have a hard enough time understanding Spiceland’s book, I can’t imagine having to deal with Kieso’s book. I hear that Kieso’s book is a lot more difficult to understand.</p>
<p>I was wondering, simple10, do you know what book they use in Intermediate Accounting II at your school?</p>
<p>LOL they probably use the same book for both classes. </p>
<p>Actually, if you hadn’t already purchased a book I’d get the one you’re not likely to use in the future. Kieso is already on edition 13. Assuming you are buying a used copy of a book today you are not going to have the right edition for your Intermediate class whenever you end up taking it. Better to have Spiceland 4th edition now and have it as a back-up reference for things you don’t understand when you end up with the 14th edition of Kieso in your class. It’d be pretty lame to pay 100 bucks for Spiceland 4th edition and then have to spend 150 for Spiceland 6th later on.</p>
<p>ingegneriae,</p>
<p>At my school they use the same book for Intermediate Accounting II because it’s almost impossible to complete all the topics in the book in a matter of one semester. Usually this applies to other schools as well. Keep in mind, schools like to have the updated edition, especially if the US is currently preparing future accountants for IFRS.</p>
<p>simple10,</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. It’s good news that one book is used for two classes. It would be very overwhelming if all those topics were covered in one class only. I hope the teacher I have for the course will be a good teacher who will be able to explain the topics well enough for me to pass the course.</p>
<p>I plan on taking Intermediate Accounting I & II in community college so that I will be prepared to take it in the 4-year college I’ll be attending. </p>
<p>I recently found out that the community college uses Intermediate Accounting by Spiceland, while the 4-year college uses Intermediate Accounting by Nikolai. From the reviews of the Nikolai version on Amazon.com, the Nikolai version seems to not be a very good book.</p>
<p>You might want to hold off on doing Intermediate at community college. Generally Intermediate courses are upper division(i.e. their course call numbers start with a 3 or 4 and are designed for Juniors and Seniors). Community colleges are ordinarily there for people to get their Freshman and Sophomore level classes out of the way(the 101’s and whatnot). They also provide vocational training for other people. Or retraining. </p>
<p>What this probably means for you is that, aside from Principles of Accounting I and II(or Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting), you cannot transfer any higher up accounting classes to a university. Those courses at community college are designed for older people who already have bachelor’s degrees but want to be CPA’s. They have their 120 hours and want to get 30 or so in accounting or whatever else their state requires cheaply at an accredited community college(in Texas only four community college systems have accounting classes which count for the CPA). Because 4-years generally do not accept any upper division classes from 2-year institutions you probably won’t be able to do it in this case, even though the quality of instruction may be on par. </p>
<p>Edit: Rereading your post it seems your plan is to take Intermediate again at the 4-year anyway. I guess this would be fine but might be a lot more extra work than reward. Honestly I did consider doing this myself but so far I think it wouldn’t have been worth doing. I’d definitely not do it if it means you end up graduating a semester later than you otherwise would. Just reading everything in advance should be more than enough preparation and far more than everyone else will have…</p>
<p>So you better be very sure that your Intermediate classes transfer in advance. If Principles of Accounting I is listed as something like ACCT 201 and Intermediate and everything else is ACNT 203 or something like that…that’s a good clue to not bother with it. It’s not designed for you, it’s for post-bac people.</p>
<p>jonahrubin,</p>
<p>I know that the Intermediate Accounting I & II courses at the community college won’t transfer to the 4-year college. I was just so worried that I might not pass Intermediate Accounting I & II at the 4-year college that I wanted to prepare ahead of time by taking them at the community college first. I believe that I can learn some things at a superficial level by reading the book ahead of time, but I won’t have an in-depth understanding of the book. I want to take advantage of the community college classes to give myself a thorough understanding of intermediate accounting so that I can get good grades at the 4-year level. I believe it’s worth delaying my graduation date.</p>
<p>As I mentioned before, the 4-year college uses Intermediate Accounting by Nikolai. From reading the reviews for that book on Amazon, it seems that it’s a difficult book to use. Since the instructor will be basing the exams, quizzes, and homework on the Nikolai book, it’s probably essential that I have a good understanding of Intermediate Accounting overall, and not simply a good understanding of Spiceland’s book.</p>
<p>I am probably worrying too much about Intermediate Accounting I & II, but that’s because I don’t know much about it. If anyone has had experience with the class and can give me some advice on how to pass it, it will probably make me more calm about the whole situation.</p>
<p>I’ve taught at a cc for 20 years and would pretty much second what jonahrubin says in the post above. If you want to preview the material, either Spiceland or Kieso will be good sources. I taught a second exposure financial class for my technical students (a kind of easy intermediate class) using Spiceland years ago and I had an early edition of Kieso when I took my intermediate class in college. In other words, since I’m ancient, both texts are well established. McGraw-Hill publishes Spiceland and they have an excellent online learning center for students supported by PowerPoints, audio podcasts, videos, etc. I think the web address is <a href=“Higher Education Support | McGraw Hill Higher Education”>www.mhhe.com/spiceland</a>. I’m planning to use the new Spiceland/Thomas/Hermann Financial Accounting text in my financial class this fall since I think the reading level is a little easier for my audience and I think the intermediate book may still fit that bill as well and might be a good match for what you are wanting to do.</p>
<p>2VU0609,</p>
<p>Thank you for the information. I hope the student resources from McGraw Hill will help me to understand Intermediate Accounting better.</p>
<p>I will study the Spiceland book once my order arrives in the mail. If I find that I’m comfortable with the material and understand it well, I will probably decide to not take Intermediate Accounting I & II at the community college.</p>
<p>Actually you should use this web address:
[Intermediate</a> Accounting](<a href=“http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072994029/student_view0/index.html]Intermediate”>Intermediate Accounting)
Select a chapter to get to the content I described.</p>
<p>2VU0609,</p>
<p>Since you’ve taught accounting courses before, I’d like to ask you:
What do you think is the hardest part of Intermediate Accounting I & II? Is there a particular topic or chapter that students usually have difficulty with?</p>