Accounting

Accounting information influences decisions made by business executives and the behavior of investors, creditors, consumers, supply chain partners, policymakers, and employees. The accounting major helps students learn the best ways to measure an organization’s financial and non-financial activities and how to use this information to make data-driven decisions.

MSB’s accounting graduates have been ranked as having the highest earning potential among accounting graduates from all U.S. business schools. Recent employers of students who major or minor in accounting include Amazon, Bain, Barclays, BlackRock, Boston Consulting Group, Carlyle, Citi, Deloitte, Evercore, EY, Google, J.P. Morgan, KPMG, McKinsey, Macquarie, Marriott, Morgan Stanley, PwC and UBS.

Career paths for accounting majors and minors include management consulting, investment and commercial banking, hedge funds, private equity, technology startups and large corporations (roles in marketing, operations, corporate finance), and public accounting. Students should consider pairing an accounting major or minor with Finance, Operations and Analytics, or Marketing as careers in these fields engage with accounting information routinely.

Students planning to earn the Chartered Financial Analyst or Certified Public Accountant designation should consult respective accounting faculty and their state Boards of Accountancy for specific requirements.

Curriculum

In addition to completing courses in the business core, students must complete five courses (15 credits) in the area of accounting. This includes 6 credits of required courses, 6 credits of general accounting electives, and 3 credits of technology based courses.

Two Required Courses

  • ACCT-3101: Corporate Financial Reporting
  • ACCT-3102 : Financial Measurement and Risk Mgmt or ACCT-3103: Accounting & Mgmt Strategy

Two General Accounting Elective Courses, Which Could Include

  • ACCT-3102: Financial Measurement and Risk Mgmt
  • ACCT-3103: Accounting and Management Strategy
  • ACCT-3221: Federal Income Taxation: Individuals 
  • ACCT-3222: Federal Income Taxation: Business Entities
  • ACCT-3243: Financial Statement Analysis 
  • ACCT-3251: Mergers, Acquisitions and Complex Financial Structures
  • ACCT-3261: Governmental and International Accounting 
  • ACCT-3271: Auditing and Analytics

Three Credits of Technology Based Courses

  • ACCT-3258/OPAN-3258: Decision Support Systems
  • COSC-1010: Intro to Computer Science – Python 
  • COSC-1020: Comp Science I – C++
  • FINC-3101: Corporate Valuation (1.5cr)
  • FINC-3102: Quantitative Investment Strategies (1.5cr)
  • FINC-3103: Machine Learning for Finance (1.5cr)
  • MARK-3101: Marketing Intelligence
  • MATH-1505: Data Visualization and Graphics
  • OPAN-3241: Data Science (1.5cr)
  • OPAN-3242: Data Visualization (1.5cr)
  • OPAN-3243: Intro Bus App Dvlpmnt in Python (1.5cr)
  • OPAN-3244: Mgmt Bus App Dvlpmnt in Python (1.5cr)
  • OPAN-3256: Digital Technologies & Analytics
  • OPAN-3257: Developing and Managing Databases
  • OPAN-3271: Environmentally Sustainable Operations & Business Models
  • OPAN-3273: Regression Modeling and Analysis (1.5cr)
  • OPAN-3274: Business Forecasting (1.5cr)