Curriculum

Bradley’s MSA curriculum offers an applied education in current accounting techniques with opportunities to further your knowledge within an accounting specialization and develop a wide range of business skills. Structured for maximum flexibility, the program allows for customization according to your career interests, helping you hone specific skills to expand your responsibilities within your current organization.

Core courses focus on application of technical knowledge and assist in enhancing your problem-solving, critical thinking, and analytical skills. In addition, a strong writing and research orientation provides in-depth opportunity to develop essential verbal and written communication skills as you work through real-business examples of accounting problems.

Elective courses allow you to acquire knowledge within new interest areas, improve weaker skills sets, or to concentrate your studies within a given specialization. For example, as a member of the Internal Audit Education Partnership (IAEP), the Accounting Department is developing a graduate level concentration in internal auditing for MSA students.

Accredited for Excellence

The Department of Accounting has received separate accounting accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) the premier accrediting body for business and accounting programs. Less than 180 business schools in the world have both business and accounting accreditations. Bradley’s Foster College of Business is one of only seven private schools in the Midwest with an AACSB accredited accounting program.

Curriculum Structure

The Master of Science in Accounting degree (MSA) requires 30 hours of course work to include a minimum of 15 credit hours of accounting courses and a maximum of 15 elective credit hours selected from courses offered within the MBA program and other disciplines.

Required, Core Courses (15 credit hours)

Complete the following accounting courses for a total of 12 credit hours:

ATG 601  Financial Accounting Theory ......................... Fall only

ATG 657  Advanced Auditing ..................................... Spring only

ATG 677  Federal Taxes II ........................................ Fall only

ATG 690  Applied Professional Accounting Research ........ Fall and Spring
                  (Comprehensive Exam) 


For the remaining 3 required accounting credit hours, select one of the following courses:

ATG 514  Advanced Managerial Accounting .................. Spring only

ATG 526  Fraud Examination ................................... Occasionally

ATG 530  Professional Interviewing Skills ................... Spring only

ATG 547  Internal Auditing .....................................  Spring only

ATG 548  Computer Assisted Audit Techniques ............. Fall only

ATG 561  International Accounting Issues .................... Fall only

ATG 585  Contemporary Issues in Accounting ............... Independent Study

ATG 590  Professional Accounting Problems ................. Independent Study

Elective Courses (15 hours)

Choose 9 credit hours of 600-level courses from within the Foster College’s MBA program. Please view the Graduate Catalog for a listing of these courses and their course descriptions. To fulfill the remaining 6 credit hours of elective coursework, select 500-and 600-level courses offered by the Foster College of Business or within other departments.

Your accounting graduate advisor must approve elective course choices. Working with your graduate advisor will ensure your elective course choices meet program requirements as well as your educational interests.

Foundational Courses

If you have not taken previous business and accounting courses, required introductory courses will provide the foundation for your MSA coursework. These foundational courses must be completed prior to beginning the MSA program of study.

Foundational accounting courses include:

  1. Accounting Systems and Control or Management Information Systems
  2. Advanced Accounting
  3. Auditing
  4. Cost Accounting or Controllership
  5. Federal Taxes I
  6. Intermediate Accounting I
  7. Intermediate Accounting II

Foundational business courses include:

  1. Business Policy
  2. Fundamentals of Marketing
  3. Introduction to Finance
  4. Legal Environment of Business
  5. Managing in Organizations
  6. Principles of Accounting—Financial
  7. Principles of Accounting—Managerial
  8. Principles of Macroeconomics
  9. Principles of Microeconomics

For course descriptions of foundational courses, view the Graduate Catalog.

Some foundational course requirements may be fulfilled with equivalent courses through your community college, often at a lower cost per credit hour. Students with an undergraduate accounting degree from an AACSB accredited school are likely to have completed all foundational course requirements. Students with an undergraduate degree in business from an AACSB accredited school are likely to have already completed the foundational business course requirements.

A degree audit, completed upon review of your application materials, is required to determine your prerequisite requirement status. If you are interested in determining your current prerequisite status, you may request an informal degree audit. To do so, please submit your request and unofficial transcript to Susannah Gawor, Assistant Director of Graduate Programs.

Additional MSA Program information and course descriptions can be found in the Graduate Catalog.