Accounting: more than just + and -… September 6, 2007

As I come to the end of my first week of classes, I wonder: is it hard because it’s new, and it’s business school, and business school is supposed to be hard, or is it hard because of the pinche Spanish? Or both? Or maybe I’m not as sharp as I usually (in all modesty, obviously) think? No, no, it can’t be that, right? I mean, I like to think it’s not a lack of intellect on my part, but I suppose that remains to be seen.

On the one hand, it’s awesome to be in a classroom full (56!) of bright people, having interesting conversations (and sometimes debates) about immediately relevant business topics. On the other hand, I feel totally overwhelmed by the volume and speed of delivery of all of these new topics. In a bizarre twist, my favorite class is Statistics, quickly followed be Economics. Both of these professors are awesome and tenured and very dynamic speakers. My stats professor is a funny little man who capers around the room telling stories of his many and varied travel and life experiences–he was a Jesuit for Socialism activist in the 60s!–and in the middle manages to make things like Standard Deviation seem interesting. On breaks, he actually smokes a pipe and takes his coffee with his students. He’s fantastic, and I would love to be at the table with him and my grandfather for dinner one night–I’m sure the conversation would be illuminating. And my Econ professor is a very dry, very jaded, very Catalan ex-consultant who holds a Ph.D. in Econ from Columbia–very sharp, and very easy to follow.

Accounting and Business Law are another story entirely. Seriously, isn’t Accounting just supposed to be adding and subtracting? Credits and debits and P&L statements? Apparently not. There are all of these terms and things I’ve never heard of, and I’m honestly struggling with what goes where on the effing balance sheet. It’s infuriating. Again: is it the Spanish or the concepts that’s killing me? In either case, I’m freaking ahogando (drowning, gringos), and we have a pretty big group assignment to complete for next week. (Don’t get me started on my group dynamic. It’s going to be an interesting semester…) Obviously, it’s going to be a pretty long weekend of tinkering with pretend numbers. And Business Law? I was really excited for this class, but man, I’ve never heard a human speak so quickly in my life. Seriously, this guy makes Lorelei Gilmore look like an amateur in the wide world of competitive speaking, or something, if such a thing existed. Really. Like Dickens, I get the feeling he must get paid by the word. I see no other rationale for spewing forth such an incredible volume of words at once. Monday was rough, because not only was he speaking at an appallingly fast pace, but he also spent a significant amount of time talking about something I had never head of before, “persona juridica,” which I understood to mean a concept of a fictitious-person-who’s-treated-like-a-person-but-isn’t-really-like-a-person (I  know, confusing, right?). Turns out “persona juridica” means “corporation.” Right. Clearly. Today was marginally better, but really, only marginally.

In summary, I’ve spent the last few days in a mighty pendulum swing between feeling totally excited (because being in school again pretty much totally rocks, except the 8am part, and the feeling like an idiot part) and totally befuddled.  Hopefully it’s just part of the acclimation process, and I’m not actually an imbecile (yes, yes, that’s how I feel a good strong third of the time). Also, I’m really banking on my language skills to kick in and help me out.

In a related story, my (already ridiculous) coffee intake has spiked significantly. And it’s only Week 1. Whew!