Traditional accounting classes such as financial and managerial accounting are important and serve as the foundation for the greater accounting profession. A solid understanding of these concepts is essential and paves the pathway for many other exciting accounting topics. However, young professionals are increasingly expected to enter the practice with additional abilities such as analytical, technological and planning and organizational skills. The recently revamped CPA Exam certainly reflects this new focus with these topics mixed throughout the various sections.

Additionally, while there is still great value in the traditional classroom format — a full three-credit course with regular classroom meetings and plenty of in-person discussion where students can learn communication skills — students also desire flexibility that works with busy schedules. This means online offerings, exposure to a variety of topics, availability of customization, etc. Students might want to add an extra credit here or there (as in one credit), rather than a full three-credit course. This can be an especially useful approach in gradually working toward the 150-hour requirement.

Rutgers’ Flexibility

At Rutgers Business School, we have a program that checks all these boxes in one flexible program. The Build Your Own Courses (BYOC) series is an innovative online learning initiative developed by the Accounting Information System (AIS) and Continuous Auditing & Reporting (CAR) Lab which builds on the “School With A Million Courses” (SWAM) platform, a learning management system built by the AIS department to offer diverse modules on a variety of subjects.

The program was developed by Miklos Vasarhelyi, KPMG Distinguished Professor of Accounting Information Systems and Director of Rutgers Accounting Research Center and CAR Lab, along with Hussein Issa, associate professor with tenure.

Basically, each course is worth one credit and is made of five modules. One module is mandatory, which sets the tone for the other modules selected. Students can “build their own course” with a variety of topics that interest them. Basically, the students can select any four modules from a library of over 65 modules (and increasing). 

For example, a potential course option is AI in Accounting and Auditing. The required module is Basics of Artificial Intelligence in Accounting and Audit, which introduces the topic of the one-credit course. The students can then pick four choices from the modules library, such as the recommended modules below: 

• Basics of Continuous Auditing and Continuous Monitoring
• Introduction to Process Mining
• Use of Classifiers in Audit
• Analyses of Exceptions and Anomalies
• Duplicate Detection Techniques
• Introduction to Audit Automation
• Basics of Clustering for Audit
• Basics of Regression Analyses for Audit
• Advanced Artificial Intelligence in Accounting and Audit

Along with great flexibility with these courses, there is still full instructional support. Students are required to successfully complete a set of assessments that can include quizzes, projects, case studies and exams. These assessments are dependent on and relate to the specific modules selected by every student.

Thus, the BYOC series allows the flexibility demanded by its users and provides a fantastic opportunity for students to gain the necessary skills for an ever-changing profession — one credit at a time. There is no one “right way” to learn, no “one size fits all” plan, so why not mix it up? It will engage more students.