by Emma Giesbrecht | Jan 15, 2019 | Year 2
I approached my second year with a lot more apprehension than my first. I knew courses would begin to increase in difficulty and required work, and I was unsure if I would be capable of maintaining the grades I had come to expect of myself. I had chosen five required courses essentially randomly, only looking at how they would fit in my schedule. This led me to take the following courses:
BFIN 241 – Finance for Managers
BFIN 246 – Financial Accounting II
BADM 210 – Business Statistics
BCPT 123 – Business Computing Basics
PSYC 100 – Introduction to Psychology I
Finance for Managers was certainly not my favourite course and helped solidify my decision to continue in the direction I have planned. The numbers were no more complex than any of my other courses, but the content was more subjective and conceptual than I prefer. I did better than I was expecting in the class, receiving a better mark than the actual accounting course that I preferred, but it was more frustrating for me to work through. I had a lot of difficulty remembering specific layouts, which did not surprise me at all, but I also had some difficulty understanding some of the concepts for the calculations. Finance was a lot less straight forward calculation than accounting and I definitely noticed that through this course. The ratio calculations were simple for me, especially with the previous exposure I had to them. This was the fourth class I had looked at them in and they are straight-forward calculations. I had one horrible exam in this class (I had two exams on the same day and did not open a book for review until the night before, leaving me with approximately three hours of sleep that night – note to self, I do not function well without sleep), but I was able to study hard and make up the grades on the final exam and project, which can be seen in the BFIN 241 tab. Overall I was proud of my final mark in the course and am ready to leave finance in the past.
Financial Accounting II was an incredibly large jump from Financial Accounting I. Some of the topics trickled over, but the course seemed a lot more disjointed and all over the place than any previous one I had taken. The topics on each exam had nothing to do with each other, requiring memorization of many accounts with no flow between them. That memorization was the most difficult part of the course for me; I have never been strong at memorization and, in my experience, it is unnecessary in the way it is required. I worked at it, however, as it was needed for the course, but that certainly did nothing for my grade. This course also had an exam on the same day as my finance course above, so the second midterm mark was much lower than I am capable of. My lower than desired grade was mostly due to missed online assignments, lowering me from an A to a B. I will have to watch for these in the future and make sure I do not miss the deadlines.
Business Statistics was one of the easiest courses for me and I really enjoyed the class. The concepts made sense and, though I did find a couple of chapters that were harder for me to work through, I did better than I was aiming to in the course. My greatest struggle was with knowing which situations required which equations, but as I worked through more examples in class everything began to make sense. Many of my mistakes were made from missing small details, either when reading and interpreting or when taking down my notes during class. Overall this course was fun and easy for me, and I excitedly decided to do another course dabbling in statistics for these reasons.
I am sure I will be using my Business Computing Basics knowledge in the future and certainly do not regret deciding to take the course. Several of my friends had taken the course in their first year and told me it was simple, but I ultimately decided it would be a useful course after working in Excel during my internship. Sure enough, I was shown many functions that I had seen used in workbooks I was using but had never understood how they worked and what they were for. The content was relatively easy for me and I was quick to understand the layouts of the applications, which allowed me to focus on using the functions as opposed to finding the functions. We had many assignments to do in the class, which also allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the content, as can be seen in the BCPT 123 tab. I believe this course will serve me best for the future, especially considering the upcoming assignments in my classes.
Introduction to Psychology I was taken as a breadth elective and has left me to make a difficult decision. I initially decided to take psychology electives for all of the required breadth elective credits, but after this class I am not sure if I wish to continue. It was not exceptionally difficult beyond a lot of memorization, but I found that having to do lots of assignments and tests on the topic made me begin to dislike it. As with most things, I found the topic fascinating but the studying tedious, and I realized how glad I am that I decided against studying psychology in the Bachelor of Arts degree and instead decided to pursue business. I did not enjoy the research and searching required to write my thought paper, as seen in the PSYC 100 tab, nor did I find the composition of the human brain interesting. Only the last few chapters genuinely interested me and those are not looked into with a lot of depth. All things considered, I did well in the class but am not sure if I will continue to take these courses in the future.
An important note aside from all of my courses, I had an incredibly strong finals period in this semester and am hoping that success will continue to push me through the second semester. I stayed focused on my studies for the entire two weeks (likely aided by the trip I had planned for the day after my last final!) and raised nearly all of my grades above where I thought they would be to end the semester.
by Emma Giesbrecht | Jan 14, 2019 | Year 2
Intro to Psychology brought with it an intro to research papers and journals. We were tasked with writing a paper about a psychological topic that was discussed in our textbook and I selected Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as mine. This is a topic I’ve seen discussed quite a bit lately, and I was excited to see what topics professionals were looking into. I found an interesting piece on executive function and medications, and I decided to use that report for my report.
The report did not take me significantly longer to complete than any other assignment I had been given, but it was certainly a greater headache. Psychology language is not my favourite to read, I discovered, and sometimes takes longer than anticipated, or appreciated, to get through.
A significant portion of the assignment was personal and real-life applications; however, this section included information about other people and has therefore been removed from this copy.
The (slightly redacted) final report can be seen here.
by Emma Giesbrecht | Jan 14, 2019 | Year 2
In my Business Computing class, we completed several projects to showcase our expertise on various Microsoft applications. We were given approximately a week to complete each one, and they involved more depth than the quizzes or exams due to the length of time we were given to complete them.
Our first assignment was completed on Microsoft Word, and we were expected to use formatting functions to complete the required steps. Our topics were to be copied from another source (with credit) and the formatting was to be completed on the plain text. My previous knowledge in Word served me well on this assignment, as many of the functions we covered in class I had discovered on my own in the past while working on formatting other projects; this made the assignment the quickest and easiest in the course for me. My final report can be seen here, and my topic came from this Wikipedia article.
Our next assignment was in Excel, which I had used previously during my internship but had limited knowledge of. We learned several formulas and how to use them together to create clean-looking documents, and I believe this unit, which was the majority of the class, was the most useful for me. I was quick to understand the uses of the functions we dealt with and easily used them to compute the numbers for me. The assignment can be seen here as the final project and here with the functions.
The last assignment was in PowerPoint, which took me the longest to complete; finding the information to put on the slides and the pictures to include took me at least three hours alone, and then I was left to compress everything into bullet points and add details. I have never been a fan of PowerPoint (visuals are not my idea of fun), but I was pleased with the final turnout of the assignment, which can be seen here.
by Emma Giesbrecht | Jan 14, 2019 | Year 2
My finance course provided us with an opportunity to select a publicly-traded company of our choice and present an analysis of its financial ratios and market value, concluding with a decision on whether it would be a good company to invest in or not. My group selected Coca-Cola Co. and immediately jumped into the assignment. Using sources suggested by our professor, we found its financial statements; we then used the raw numbers to complete our ratios, as seen here.
The final report included multiple sections: current events, financial ratios, market analysis, and recommendations make up the most important aspects. We divided the work that could be, leaving one group member in charge of each important section, only leaving the conclusions and recommendations for the end. We collaborated to get the final parts written and submitted on the official due date, despite the extended deadline. The final report can be viewed here.
by Emma Giesbrecht | May 8, 2018 | Year 1
In my Marketing course we had a final project alongside our exam. This was done in predetermined groups of four with a single check in a few weeks after it was assigned. We split the research, writing, editing, and visuals evenly between us and set to work immediately. This was the best group I have ever had the opportunity to work with. We all kept in touch frequently, asked if we needed assistance, and got our work done on time. We got along as well, allowing conversations to occasionally flow away from the project, but we were ultimately able to remain on task and on time. All of us were used to leading projects and worked on compromising and accepting other people’s strengths in certain areas, and I believe we did an amazing job of coming together as a team and performing to the best of our abilities.
Here is the complete report.
by Emma Giesbrecht | May 3, 2018 | Year 1
My second semester at Capilano University came after a successful first one and I remember mentally planning how I could improve my previous organization and work styles to perform at my best. I had chosen my courses in the previous semester, taking most of the other required business courses to put first year behind me once it was completed. The courses I took were as follows:
CMNS 220 – Advanced Business Writing and Editing (Business Writing)
BFIN 141 – Financial Accounting I (Accounting)
ECON 111 – Principles of Microeconomic Theory (Economics)
BMKT 161 – Marketing
BADM 101 – Management
Advanced Business Writing and Editing had the greatest impact on my experiences at Capilano University. Not only has my writing improved, but my future opportunities and experiences have expanded. As can be seen in my CMNS 220 folder, I wrote an individual report based on an interview about ePortfolios, and their use and development. This project led me to be a participant in an explanatory video about the ePortfolios (not yet released) and has encouraged me to apply to become an ePortfolio ambassador. This course also had two required presentations and a group assignment, all of which helped improve my confidence in those areas. This was my most valued and appreciated course I have taken in university.
Financial Accounting I was entirely new content for me. The course relied heavily on the previous accounting course I had taken, which was expected with it being a prerequisite. I began the semester incredibly strong in this course, but gradually lost my flow and began to struggle with managing the workload I had in my courses. With my strong understanding of accounting I was quick to decide I would be able to succeed with the least time being put into this course and I was mistaken. Part of my understanding had come from my love of accounting and desire to do all the work I could to spend more time on it and without this practice I began to struggle more than I had previously. I still did well in the class, but I learned the most important lessons of university through it: everything is of equal importance and no matter how quickly you can pick something up you still need to give yourself time to practice.
My Principles of Microeconomic Theory course was another one that I would like to have spent more time on. At the time, I was choosing between courses and therefore neglecting to spend a desirable amount of time on all five. This was by far my worst decision yet, but I am simply going to use it as a reminder in the future that not putting in the time and work required will leave the result unsatisfying no matter how nice the letter is. The course itself covered a large variety of information that did all flow together well, but I struggled with remembering the differences between similar terms and how to find the associated numbers from charts and graphs. In the beginning the work was simple and straight forward, but as the course went on and topics began to link with each other they all blurred into one mess of terms and lines. Spending the extra time may have allowed me to decipher between them all better, however, so I will have to live with that choice and improve my work habits next semester.
Marketing was a course that ate up a lot of my time. We had large projects and lots of reading to do and that became a key focus as I fought to keep myself at my desired letter grade. I was successful in the end, but I could have split my time better between my courses. Our group project was a success (it can be viewed in my BMKT 161 folder), which greatly increased my grade and my confidence. We spent many hours researching, writing, editing, and presenting our paper; this contributed to the uneven distribution of my time, but was necessary for our group to get a mark we would be satisfied with. I was not unhappy with this course and its result, and I wish I could have put the same energy and time into all of my courses.
Management was, unfortunately, my least favourite course. While I enjoyed being in the class environment, the topic was quite drab and felt like a repeat of information I already had from other classes. Some extra vocabulary terms were added, but I had learned significant portions of the content from Law and Marketing. This frustrated me because the answers from one class would not translate directly to another despite being correct, as answers had to be from the class specifically. This led me to neglect creating as detailed summary sheets, which in turn likely led me to have a lower mark than I could have received. This is also a factor that may have led to our group’s struggles with the final project. The work was divided as evenly as possible between all members, but not all of it was done correctly. Review sheets would have allowed us to find the information we needed much quicker and we may have been able to avoid incorrectly completing a section of the assignment. We worked together in the end to correct the error to the best of our abilities with the professor’s knowledge, but still could have done better.
