ACCT20001: Cost Management

1hr mid sem test (20%), tutorial participation (10%), 3hr exam (70%)

Very much unlike the other accounting subjects I have previously reviewed here, I was not a fan of this subject. The subject is quite messy as I alluded to earlier, and I will now tell you why.

The problem is in the tutorial questions that are set from the textbook. These questions are usually ridiculously complicated, to the point that my tutor would only have time to work out and explain in detail one or two of the qs in the tute while many of my friends' tutors would simply flick through the answers of every question with very brief explanations, not exactly ideal ways to learn. While you can access these answers on LMS at the end of the week, the problem lies in the fact that tutors are really pedantic when checking whether you've completed the tute work and giving you tute marks for it, so you'd end up losing tute marks because the questions were too hard to actually finish.

I would say the textbook and tutes are linked together, whilst the lectures are linked with the exam. The book and tutes are like an extension to what you really need to know, they basically overcomplicate the subject and make it seem harder than it actually is. You will see once you get the practice exams, and even when you get the practice mid sem tests, that the questions you've done in tutes are harder than what you'll be assessed on. All you really need to be ready for the exam is to be able to do the practice exam qs and understand the examples taught in lectures as well as memorise definitions and advantages/disadvantages etc. I should also quickly mention that the mid sem test is 30 multiple choice qs, and the exam is all short answer.

The lecturer Sujay is not a bad lecturer, but his lectures are basically him summarising what is on his lecture slides, he explains things quickly and not in detail so unless you've already read and understood the content on his slides before listening to the lecture, you might get lost quite easily as it takes time to realise how he calculates certain things, where he got the numbers for it, which numbers he used etc. Lecture topics were basically learning different methods of allocating indirect costs, breaking even, budgeting, costing and pricing decisions.
I would highly not recommend this subject unless of course if you're doing an Accounting major (like me), in which case you have to take the subject. In my experience anyone who's not doing Commerce and chooses to do Accounting subjects as breadth end up regretting it but in saying that, if you're keen to take on the subject don't let me stop you because it will teach you things that are useful, especially if you were to open or run a business that sells goods.

Yes, with screen capture

Sujay Nair

They posted three with solutions on LMS

3 out of 5

Management and cost accounting 5th edition, sadly most of the tute questions are in the textbook so you will need it, but the book itself in terms of the content is not very useful as some topics are taught a bit differently and simpler than the way the book teaches it, the subject is a bit messy like that but I'll explain more later...

1 x 2hr lecture and 1 x 1hr tutorial a week

2015, semester 1

TBA

Tute participation 10%, Midsem 20%, Exam 70%

Before I say anything, I have to admit that I might seem like a bit of an 'accounting hater', my past reviews for unimelb accounting subjects have called most subjects lousy lol. I actually enjoy accounting, but I dislike bits and pieces about how these subjects are taught.

Anyway, Cost Management follows the trend of most accounting subjects: it's another mixed bag. The content by nature is very dry. You can't really blame anyone for this. You will be working through concepts such as different costing mechanisms, and how to calculate budget overhead variances and such. This isn't its main problem though.

I had mixed feelings about the lectures. Kelsey is actually a fantastic lecturer, but I had the slightest feeling that most of the slides were recycled from previous years. She actually communicates the concepts quite well, even though some of the examples left a bit to be desired: in both complexity and relevance. For lack of better word, the slides were very basic. We'll look past the lectures though they're meant to be basic so that every single person in the theatre leaves with some sort of understanding. So on the whole, lectures are fine. But here is the worst problem of the subject. You will be pointed towards the textbook as your bible of knowledge for furthering knowledge, closing theory gaps and consolidating understanding. kelsey y u do dis

Firstly, this is lazy teaching. Although the textbook is written rather well, there are many bits that aren't relevant to ACCT20001, and I say ACCT20001 because you have different names of systems from Great Britain floating around that can sometimes confuse you. This isn't that much of an issue, but when you have tutorials that are pretty much ENTIRELY focused on mastery of the textbook questions, you're in for trouble. Why? Exam questions will boggle you and be written in a style that is very different to what you might expect from all the tute work you did. Thus, tutorials suffer greatly. Although the tutor in charge likes to babble on about how tutorials were 'supposed' to inspire great discussion, I'm sure that most if not all tutors were just working through a solution pack and delivering mini-lectures, or rather, 'doing the homework' by themselves onto the whiteboard. Do you learn anything from copy pasting solutions onto the board? I don't know. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

And finally, the stress over tutorial preparation. I feel sorry for the kids in my class that actually had a LOT of decent contributions in class, but would fall down in the 'homework' department as they might've forgotten to bring the work in. Cost Management is hella anal about this. Tute prep for this class is summed up as such: Do your homework, and raise your hand like a robot to spit out copy pasted figures and numbers and cruise your way towards a 10%. Actually raise some good talking points but don't do your homework? gg

The mid-semester test is one of the first instances where you will realise how textbook based this subject really is. You'll get a bunch of multiple-choice questions that are rather well written, but lack similarity to what you've been learning in tutorials. The sample test provided this year was very similar to the actual test that I sat, but again, I found myself questioning 'what do I need to study?'. You can do all the readings and practice questions from the textbook that you like, but still fall short of an excellent mark if you fail to pinpoint those areas that are sketchy by nature: eg. Week 1: Planning and Control is a very subjective field that is difficult to fairly assign multiple choice questions to.

However, it is the exam that will bite you in the ass. It's a three hour slogfest, and I found myself absolutely clueless during SWOTVAC over what to study. Normally, I'd shoot straight towards lecture slides, but these were too basic. Tutorial questions were lacking relevance, they were often 40 min questions that beared little similarity to the ones in the sample exam. Readings? Modern and contemporary questions around areas such as ABC costing weren't terrifically covered.

It's simple really. Create ORIGINAL tutorials (this means, adapt 'take-home' questions, not prescribe textbook question after question) so that this opens the channels for quality discussion in tutorials and you have yourselves, a near perfect subject. The subject coordinators love to emphasise how our understanding for theory needs to be holistic, but how can you do this if the practical is completely isolated topics? Thus, the luck factor comes back into play. If you put your eggs into certain baskets, you might do better than the kid that studies very hard for every nook and cranny of the subject.

So Cost kind of sucks in this way. If you're that kid that likes the traditional textbook-crunching way of tackling a subject; this subject is for you. Unfortunately, it was 2edgy4me.

Yes, slides are recorded

Kelsey Dworkis

Just the one sample exam with basic solutions

2.5/5

Just get the textbook: Author is Bhimani and get the green covered edition (I believe it's either 4th or 5th)

Standard mix of a 2hr lecture and 1hr tute

2014, Semester 1

H1