EDUCATION FOR PUBLIC ACCOUNTANCY.
The modern collegiate school of business is in a unique position to meet the education requirements of accountants that will combine cultural and technical training, for it is so constituted as to maintain the proper balance between the liberal arts tradition and the specific requirements of preparation for a professional career in any of the various phases of business activity. In terms of types of curriculum structure for such a school, the paper argues for the "diagonal" plan, wherein the student begins his studies with a program containing a preponderance of subjects in the liberal arts division and a sprinkling of business subjects. As he continues through his collegiate career the trend is reversed so that, in his senior year, the student is pursuing a heavy concentration in his specialization group together with a light general elective program. The general advantages of this plan are (1) the problem of articulation between high school and college is thereby minimized; (2) the student is introduced to business in broad terms through a general survey of business structure, organization, procedures, and laws-all of which are basically related to the accounting process; (3) the general business subjects are appropriately introduced before specialization is begun; and (4) the choice of a specialty is deferred until such a time as the student has surveyed generally the various fields of business endeavor. From the specific viewpoint of education for public accountancy, this form of curriculum design (i.e., the "diagonal" type) permits the accountancy student to defer his decision to prepare for this particular phase of the field until he has virtually completed his specialization group and has been "exposed" to the various areas of possible professional interest in the general field of accountancy.
- DOI
- 10.2308/tar-7051310
- Volume
- 22 (1)
- Pages
- 28-36
- Language
- en
- Export
- BibTeX
- Sources
- crossref openalex