Kelly Richmond Pope, a documentary filmmaker and accounting professor at DePaul College in Chicago, needs to rework the best way accounting is taught.
She not too long ago started educating an Intro to Monetary Accounting on-line course on Outlier.org. The school-level, for-credit course makes use of a few of the classes from her 2017 documentary, All of the Queen’s Horses, a couple of $53 million embezzlement case in Illinois as a approach to train college students in a extra partaking approach concerning the fundamentals of accounting. The course is offered by Outlier.org, an organization led by Aaron Rasmussen, one of many co-founders of the web studying service, MasterClass, which loved a increase in recognition in 2020 with so many individuals caught at residence through the pandemic.
Amid a decline in recent times within the variety of college students coming into the accounting career and taking the CPA Examination, Pope believes a part of the answer could lie in making accounting a extra fascinating topic to review. She needs to do this by combining the talents of a documentary filmmaker and educator.
“It’s regarding for certain,” she mentioned. “A part of the issue is we don’t present learners the thrilling elements of accounting, and we have now to have a extra partaking method to introduce this dynamic career to individuals. If we have now a scarcity of accountants, that’s an issue as a result of the spine of our financial system is enterprise — small, medium and enormous — so there’s a want for accountants in each facet of the best way our financial system capabilities. I feel what we have to do is showcase how dynamic the sphere is and the way vital the sphere is, not simply guidelines and laws to cross the CPA Examination. We’ve got to take a special method.”
Kelly Richmond Pope
The course makes use of a few of the gamified method that Pope employed in a earlier course final yr for Surgent IQ referred to as Purple Flag Mania that taught fraud detection expertise via a whodunit-solving kind of detective story format (see story).
“The Intro to Monetary Accounting course blends partaking, beautiful-looking content material with principle and story, and people are the issues I’ve been obsessed with for thus lengthy,” mentioned Pope. “The thought of storytelling, gaming and energetic studying all fall beneath that very same umbrella. That is simply extra consistent with how I feel programs must be developed and delivered.”
College students discover such programs extra partaking than the kind of on-line programs they’re in all probability used to seeing. “We have to cease having a distinction between how we devour info personally vs. professionally,” mentioned Pope. “If you concentrate on it, why will we see so many streaming companies? Why will we see so many documentary sequence on Netflix, Amazon or Hulu? It’s as a result of that’s what we actually take pleasure in. We take pleasure in tales and content material like that. When you can work out a approach to merge that into the best way we study, it’s a win-win state of affairs for all. One of many issues we’d like is to actually take that mix and infuse it into the classroom much more. There may be such a necessity for innovation in training.”
The pandemic compelled many college students right into a distant studying atmosphere for the primary time, however the outcomes weren’t encouraging for a lot of college students and their dad and mom, prompting calls for for a return to the classroom.
“If something, what we’ve realized through the pandemic is that on-line educating isn’t just opening up your Zoom or Groups and simply speaking,” mentioned Pope. “That’s not on-line studying, though that was how numerous us made it via the pandemic. It actually takes a big funding to create a strong course.”
The American Institute of CPAs and the Nationwide Affiliation of State Boards of Accountancy have been collaborating on a CPA Evolution initiative to deliver extra present know-how expertise into the CPA career and the CPA Examination, whereas the Institute of Administration Accountants has additionally created a Administration Accounting Competency Framework to encourage extra studying of expertise which might be in demand for accountants working at corporations at present.
“We as educators and all of these organizations have the identical accountability, and that’s to make college students aggressive,” mentioned Pope. “I take a look at the CPA Evolution mannequin as trying to do this. We’ve got to evolve. We’ve got to make it possible for our expertise keep present. We are able to’t assume that we’re going to develop the career and entice extra individuals by doing the identical factor.”
Pope has been listening to optimistic suggestions on the course from customers, together with one who wrote a message on Instagram telling her, “OMG, I’m watching the primary video of my Outlier Intro to Monetary Accounting course, and I nearly cried. It’s superb to be taught a difficult topic by somebody who appears to be like like me. I can’t wait to use what you train me towards my rising enterprise, and we share a love of learning following accounting fraud and white collar crimes. I am in heaven. Thanks, Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope. This is likely one of the greatest birthday items I’ve ever given myself.”
Pope is elated to obtain feedback like these. “You wouldn’t think about that we might be speaking about an accounting course,” she mentioned. “I feel that speaks to the mixing of accounting principle, storytelling and delightful cinematography. That is the best way we construct again that curiosity within the accounting subject.”
One of many drawbacks for some accounting college students is the beginning salaries for younger accountants, versus another fields within the tech business, in addition to tales concerning the lengthy hours, particularly throughout a busy tax season.
“I feel there’s much more competitors of fields,” mentioned Pope. “There are much more dynamic fields that we’d not have been competing with 5, 10 or 15 years in the past. College students have modified. Firms have modified. The way in which we work has perpetually modified. You concentrate on public accounting and the entire idea of busy season, that’s not engaging to lots of people. That’s not maybe a attribute that many Gen Z’s are drawn to, to inform them you might want to work seven days per week throughout this time period with no integration of work-life mix. Whereas you’ve got all these different fields that have in mind work-life mix, psychological well being, household commitments. The way in which we work and the best way college students take a look at job alternatives may be very completely different than it was 10 years in the past. It’s not simply cash, I don’t assume that we will fully pay our approach out of this. It’s the best way we work as nicely.”
College students might also discover it extra thrilling to study fraud detection and forensic accounting.
“One of many points that I attempt to not do is train in a really siloed method,” mentioned Pope. “I train managerial accounting and monetary accounting, however to assume that we don’t want to know the significance of inside controls to forestall fraud, to assume that ought to solely be in an auditing course or a forensic accounting course is a detriment to what we’re doing with our college students. It must be built-in all through all of our programs. What I attempt to do with the Introduction to Monetary Accounting course is basically present that integration as a lot as I can. Realizing accounting is a life ability. On the finish of day by day, one of many issues that’s most vital to you is how a lot cash you’ve got or how a lot cash your enterprise has made or how helpful your inventory or your investments are. Having the ability to learn and perceive monetary reviews and ask vital questions is a life ability. Once we see the numbers decline in our subject that may assist individuals and corporations defend their organizations, it’s a priority. Hopefully we will get forward of this hiring disaster earlier than it turns into fully onerous to show round.”
She hopes to curiosity extra younger individuals within the accounting career, together with inside her household. “One of many issues I inform my highschool son is it’s best to take into account accounting as a serious,” mentioned Pope. “It’s a superb basis. Who is aware of what he’ll do? However one of many issues that I plan to do that summer time is have him take the Intro to Monetary Accounting course, the course I created, so he can study early at the highschool stage about accounting.”