I’m steadily making progress
through my Business Math course, and I should be taking the third of four exams
in this class by this weekend or the beginning of next week. This week, I am studying financial
statements, balance sheets and financial ratios and trend analysis. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to
tell you what these things are, let along actually work on them.
The great thing about this
portion of the course is that the text book material uses actual financial
statements from real companies and has you prepare an analysis of the
material. This is as “real world” as any
course could hope to get, and I have to say I was impressed. I actually feel like I am gaining the
knowledge I will need when I move up in the business world.
Although we are all working
for that sacred piece of paper…the degree…there is something even more
important that goes along with the whole process. It’s the education…the knowledge…that we as
students are gaining through our distance learning courses. As I have mentioned before, I have always
been something of a math moron. When it
came to simple math problems, such as the household budget or balancing a
checkbook, I always had to have my wife help me out with some of the math.
Well, this past weekend, she
was paging through my Business Math text book and some of the homework I have
done. She said “you are actually doing
this?” I said “Sure. It’s taking me what seems like forever, but I’m
getting through it.” With a look of awe
on her face, she said “I can’t even understand this, and I could never do these
math problems in your book.” She then
added something even more amazing: “You’re
better at math than I am now.”
That was my first
jaw-dropping moment through this whole process.
I have taken so long to get through this course; I was starting to feel
like a failure. But, I am learning the
material, I have a 95 average in this course so far, and I will likely finish
it by the middle of this month. Up
next: I’ll be studying inventory
valuation and estimation.
I did make one stupid mistake
this past week. I had mailed a SMART
transcript request to try and get some of my Navy training credit transferred
to Penn Foster College.
Unfortunately, I mailed it to Penn Foster, rather than the Navy.
I’ve really got to pay
closer attention when addressing these envelopes.