Alumni of London Accounting Class Attend First Reunion

By Brandon Wallace ‘17

Accounting alumni from the past two International Accounting Issues class trips to London recently gathered to reminisce about their experiences. The class, offered every other year, most recently toured London in 2012 and 2014.

“I have had the best 10-day experience I could ever imagine while in London, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it,” wrote 2014 student Emily West in the Journals from the Road blog. “From the new foods, learning to navigate an international city, to seeing things I never dreamed of seeing before, my trip was one for the record books.”

The class introduced students to significant accounting matters experienced by multi-national companies. The primary objective of the course was to gain an understanding of generally accepted accounting principles that are used outside the United States to report financial information to global users. The course content familiarized students with international accounting regulations and practices as well as some of the current research on the harmonization of worldwide accounting standards. 

“The class taught me that financial statement presentation could be noticeably different from one country to another,” said Bradley Krafft from the ‘12 class. “This really hadn’t occurred to me until I took this course, and I’d say it piqued my interest in the current convergence between the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and the International Financial Reporting Standards.”

The past two iterations of ATG 561 involved an embedded travel component to London for a week. Since 2012, students have been able to visit the following organizations: Bank of England, Caterpillar, Perkins Diesel Engines, Crowe Clark Whitehill, Deloitte & Touche, International Accounting Standards Board, Intangible Business Solutions and Lloyds of London. 

“One thing I really enjoyed was walking down the streets and looking around at all of the beautiful surroundings,” wrote Jennifer Addis in a 2014 Journals from the Road entry. “The architecture was outstanding to me. I was able to experience a whole new world.”

The course will be offered next in May 2016 and the next reunion will occur in 2017.