Financial Accounting by Michael P. Licata, Ph.D. is a first accounting course for homeschool high school students. Many high schools offer an accounting course as an elective for students interested in pursuing a career in business. Now homeschool high school students have such an elective available to them.
Michael P. Licata, PhD. is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Accountancy in the Villanova School of Business at Villanova College in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Profesor Licata has taught the financial accounting course dozens of times in his 24 plus years as a Professor at Villanova University. The past eight years Professor Licata has specialized in teaching the distance learning courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
Students taking Financial Accounting by Michael P. Licata, Ph.D. will learn to prepare and interpret the four basic financial statements which all publicly traded companies must prepare and make available to the public.
Any homeschool high school student interested in a career in business or in someday owning their own business will benefit from this course. The only pre-requiste is a basic math class.
All course content is incorporated into the lecture slides for each chapter. There is no textbook and no 40 page chapters to read. The course is comprised of 12 chapters which are covered in 28 lessons (including exams) and can be taken in either a semester format or over an entire academic year. Each chapter’s lectures include a discussion of important concepts and demonstration problems featuring step by step illustrations of how to work through the various types of accounting problems covered.
Course Objectives
The objective of Financial Accounting by Michael P. Licata, Ph.D. is to introduce students to the study of accounting which is known as the language of business. The main purpose of financial accounting is to measure and report the performance of a business to interested parties both outside and inside of the business. These interested parties use accounting information to make a variety of decisions such as:
-
Investors - Deciding whether to purchase or sell a company’s stock.
-
Bankers - Deciding whether to lend money to a business.
-
Managers – Making day-to-day business decisions such as whether to increase inventory levels, or to spend more on advertising.
-
Students will learn to prepare and interpret the four basic financial statements - income statement, balance sheet, statement of owners’ equity and statement of cash flows.
Course Materials:
The course is taught in 12 Chapters each divided into 2 or 3 parts, for a total of 28 lessons. The chapters have Flash lectures with 15 to 40 slides. The lecture slides may also be printed off for the student to use. After the lecture slides are view the student then works the chapter problems, which usually number 4-15 problems. At the end of every 4 chapters there is an exam to be taken.
The material could be divided up into a fourteen week semester, working 2 lessons a week. Or be taken over the course of an entire academic year doing one lesson for 28 weeks.
Included within the course materials from Professor in a Box is the answer keys to all problems and exams. I also received a pencil and calculator.
Cost:
$134.99
Free USPS Priority Mail shipping.
To purchase click here.
My Thoughts:
With the majority of the high school products I receive for TOS Crew review, I enlist Jennifer's help to test them out. But at this time I am trying not to overwhelm Jennifer, she has a lot on her plate. So I decided that I would be the one to trial this accounting course, I know very little about accounting principles and thought it would be good knowledge for my to acquire. I also did a little homework, asking my CPA friend, what do you think needs to be included in a high school level accounting class. I am thankful she wrote a list of musts for a high school accounting class.
As I worked through a few of the lessons, I enjoyed listening to the lectures. I've taken a long-distance graduate level Statistic class and the lecture slides are very similar. I like the ability to go back over a slide and listen again to the point being taught. The problems directly cover the course work taught and are comprehensive. The exams are doable but not to easy. It is a good baseline education into business accounting. Professor in a Box did included all, but one, of the musts my CPA friend listed.
The one thing missing was an educational component on how to use Microsoft Excel or any computerized accounting program. Within the Professor in a Box website there is a link to online tutorials for Excel, but that isn't the same as providing education within the course.
To view other TOS Crew members review of this product, please click the logo below.
Happy Thanksgiving
Put a lid on the lye and set it to the side. Lye is dangerous stuff. Respect the lye.
See how my pot almost covers the scale? That's what made things hard. The nice thing was the little zero button that allows you to measure one ingredient, zero the scale, and then continue measuring and adding other ingredients all in that one pot. 
My friend suggested that we add the solids before the liquids. It's important to measure the ingredients exactly. Soapmaking is a very delicate chemical process.
Gently pour the lye into your pitcher of water. It heats up to 200* immediately and stinks. Stay clear of the fumes. Stirring heats the water and you will need to get the temperature down per your recipe so avoid stirring. 
You really need to have two thermometers. One for the lye mixture and another for the oils. You can perhaps wipe them clean as you go back and forth, but it's a lot to keep an eye on. You're trying to get both mixtures at the same temperature: cooling the lye mixture and heating up the oils. Tricky stuff.
But oh, sweet mercy, when the temperatures are in sync, you get to pour the lye mixture into the oils and that's when the magic starts to happen. Your heart will race and you'll find yourself thinking, "I'm doing it. I'm really making soap!"
Now you get to add the yummy fragrance oils. Mix gently and carefully with the stick blender paying close attention to the consistency. You're waiting for it to get to the elusive "trace" that soapers talk about. Trace is when it's kind of like pudding and when you dribble the soap across the pot, it leaves a faint line. 
Once it's at that perfect consistency, you can pour it into the molds. You can just use regular boxes lined with wax paper or store-bought molds. 
See how ours isn't perfectly smooth? That's how you can tell it is homemade. Ha ha! 
