I'm biting the bullet. Finally. I'm diving whole-heatedly in to my Finance class. Work and my personal life have gotten in the way of me making any real attempts at progress with this class up until now.
My initial reactions of Task 1 were that shouldn't be too difficult. Basically, it seems to be a matter of defining the term, making a judgment and then backing it up with numbers.
I also understand that with each new class, comes a new vocabulary. I can handle that. One semester in undergrad I took French, Spanish, and American Sign Language and got an A in each class. I was excited! I was going to prove that this class didn't have to be hard. Maybe these folks on the forums who complaining about the class, were assuming that it had to be difficult, therefore they were making it difficult. Perhaps their expectations were dictating part of their experience, you know, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.What if I went in to this class assuming it was going to be challenging, but not impossible? What if? Yeah. Not so much. I've been working in the first question in Task 1 all morning and I think I've cried 6 times already.
It's frustrating that all of the course materials don't use exactly the same terms. I found a video that I actually found pretty useful for horizontal analysis. The problem is, that the instructor uses some slightly different terms than what are on my WGU spreadsheet. Eeks! Since this is a new language that I'm attempting to acquire, how do I know if gross margin = gross profits? What did I do back in 11th grade Spanish? I consulted a dictionary, an Accounting Dictionary. I wanted to see if the definitions matched! Not even close, unless perhaps they are close, but I don't know that they are! Grr. Since this is a new language that I'm learning, I tend to take things literally and if things don't match exactly, I panic. This was the first time that I cried today.
I don't doubt that there are people out there who know if gross margin does in fact; mean the same thing as gross profits. They probably throw around the terms interchangeably all the time. That's similar to teaching a non-English speaker that purple= lavender=violet=lilac=indigo. I need to find that source for accounting/finance.
Small goals will get me to the finish. My goal for today is to write something mildly coherent for question 1. There. It's now in writing. Wish me luck!
Forward.
My initial reactions of Task 1 were that shouldn't be too difficult. Basically, it seems to be a matter of defining the term, making a judgment and then backing it up with numbers.
I also understand that with each new class, comes a new vocabulary. I can handle that. One semester in undergrad I took French, Spanish, and American Sign Language and got an A in each class. I was excited! I was going to prove that this class didn't have to be hard. Maybe these folks on the forums who complaining about the class, were assuming that it had to be difficult, therefore they were making it difficult. Perhaps their expectations were dictating part of their experience, you know, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.What if I went in to this class assuming it was going to be challenging, but not impossible? What if? Yeah. Not so much. I've been working in the first question in Task 1 all morning and I think I've cried 6 times already.
It's frustrating that all of the course materials don't use exactly the same terms. I found a video that I actually found pretty useful for horizontal analysis. The problem is, that the instructor uses some slightly different terms than what are on my WGU spreadsheet. Eeks! Since this is a new language that I'm attempting to acquire, how do I know if gross margin = gross profits? What did I do back in 11th grade Spanish? I consulted a dictionary, an Accounting Dictionary. I wanted to see if the definitions matched! Not even close, unless perhaps they are close, but I don't know that they are! Grr. Since this is a new language that I'm learning, I tend to take things literally and if things don't match exactly, I panic. This was the first time that I cried today.
I don't doubt that there are people out there who know if gross margin does in fact; mean the same thing as gross profits. They probably throw around the terms interchangeably all the time. That's similar to teaching a non-English speaker that purple= lavender=violet=lilac=indigo. I need to find that source for accounting/finance.
Small goals will get me to the finish. My goal for today is to write something mildly coherent for question 1. There. It's now in writing. Wish me luck!
Forward.