Jimmy Cliff and A New School Year

Written By: Dr. Rich Houston, Director of the Culverhouse School of Accountancy

Troy, Sydney, and I completed our three city tour last week. We had a great time and learned so much from so many people. The trip reinforced the idea that people with accounting degrees have endless opportunities within their varied, reliable, and interesting careers.?

The Alumni Happy Hours were amazing. The comradery among graduates of all ages was striking, as was the level of success each had attained. Many talked about how they “lucked into” accounting, and that they hope that people your age knew how versatile an accounting degree is when choosing a major.

Jimmy Cliff. It’s a new year, which provides the opportunity for a new beginning. However, fresh starts and resolutions are virtually worthless if they’re all talk. Going all in is easy to say but very difficult to do, but if you set your mind to it and use all available resources you can do it. As Jimmy Cliff sang, “You can get it if you really want.” Great song, check it out.

Make the most of the year. I talked to a freshman earlier this week who is so excited to start school and has an attitude of “this is my big chance.” However, on her first day, she was so terrified by the size of Hewson 0002 that she sat in the back row. She couldn’t see the front of the room, and was distracted by someone in front of her who was using her computer to price monogrammed pillows. So, on Monday, she’ll sit in the front row, which makes the room seem smaller, cuts out most distractions, and better allows the teacher to see her raise her hand when she has questions. I suggest you make similar adjustments and have the same attitude. And monogrammed pillows represent all of the many distractions at UA that can knock you off the rails before you even realize it. Be vigilant and defend yourself against threats to your success.

The young lady I talked to currently is majoring in general business, but when she told me what she’s done and what she wants to do, I told her that accounting would get her to where she wants to be. Her Dad graduated from the MAcc program in 2010 and she loves what he does (he’s already taught her a lot). She has a business where she buys clothes at bargain prices and sells at higher prices (sales, cost of goods sold, mark-up, margins). She wants to invest in real estate (assets, liabilities, rental income, depreciation, and other expenses), invest in stocks (reading and understanding financial statements), and own her own business. Accounting can get her to all of these goals, and it can get you to yours too.

So that’s what you really look like. This is the first semester that’s starting without masks since January 2020. Great that things feel so normal. I’m looking forward to a great year. I hope you are too. As positive as I thought the beginning of last year was, I sense more positivity than I did at this time last year.

I felt as if something was off with many students last Spring, and in talking to students and other teachers I concluded that much of that could be attributed to many hard-working, well-meaning people finding that the price of mental gas was simply too high. Last I saw, the price is coming down, especially if you pay with cash.

At the end of last year, I talked to one of my 311 students about his struggles in class. I said that “it seemed as if you were trying to climb a mountain of ice using only your fingertips.” He said “Yes!”, and that one reason was that Spring was the first semester that students were held fully accountable for showing up and turning things in on time in quite a while. For him, a second semester junior at the time, the last full semester with such accountability was first semester of his freshman year.

When I saw him yesterday, he clearly was a new man. He had a summer internship, which he loved, traded a student organization that was not right for him for one with similarly positive people, and is ready to go. Hold that thought.

I met with another young lady yesterday and told her that she seemed so much more confident than last year. She attributed it to doing well in school, and also to loving accounting and all of the people she is around because of it. This can be you too.

How can someone not be motivated and inspired by being around people like them? I hope you feel this way too and are similarly motivated. If you are, don’t lose the feeling. If you’re not, make the effort to be around the right people and never lose sight of what you can achieve. If you’re mourning the loss of school-related flexibility that COVID provided, realize that attending class, respecting due dates, and not expecting special treatment is not so much for us to ask, and they’re all good practices for you to return to.

Some other thoughts:

• Did you treat the first day of class as “syllabus day,” in effect devoting no mental energy to it? You just wasted a day of class because of how you framed it. Treat each and every day the same, giving it your full attention and effort.
• Even though I swore I’d never wear a bandanna, I increased the size and appearance of the headband I wear under my bike helmet to bandanna-like. The new headband is made of better material, it's more comfortable, and it totally keeps the sweat out of my face. Did I say it was Lululemon? Judge me, I don't care. I'm more comfortable and, in my at-least-it's-not-a-riding-lawnmower world (I contend it’s virtually impossible to look cool on a riding lawnmower), I may actually look cool...to me, unless I’m misreading my reflection when I ride by a window.

• If you don't want to do well, don't. But if you have the opportunity to succeed and don’t take it, you’re wasting your time. If you want to do well but can't without assistance, seek assistance. It'll lead to a better life.
• A callback to the riding lawnmower (a callback is a comment that refers to one previously made, also known as an internal allusion; great comedians use callbacks quite a bit). If you do decide to go all in on school, some of your friends may treat you like riding lawnmower guy, even though you’re really cool headband guy. And are people who try to keep you from doing well really your friends?
• This may sound deep, but it is only if you can figure out why (I’m still trying): It’s difficult to spoon sugar into your coffee with a fork.
• Something Nick Jonas said in a documentary: “Expectation is the foundation of disappointment.”
• Finally, some one-liners I am borrowing from David Brooks:

1. Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
2. Getting cheated occasionally is a small price to pay for trusting the best in everyone, because when you trust the best in others, they will treat you the best.
3. The thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult.
4. It’s not an apology if it comes with an excuse.
5. If you meet a jerk once a month, you’ve met a jerk; if you meet jerks every day, you’re a jerk.
6. Ignore what they are thinking of you because they are not thinking of you.

…and don’t let this get in your head when you brush your teeth: