Friday, April 25, 2008

To Future ENG 304 Students

BEWARE- Angie is A LOT different than other professors! lol In a good way! She encourages you calling her Angie, IMing her, or even texting if needed. She is also very understanding, helpful, and emails you back ins literally 2 minutes.

As far as the work goes it's not hard, but you do need to put time into it. This class isn't hard to get an A in and the assignments are very useful for business majors. The assignments are all things that you will need to know how to do in the future.

All in all it's a great class. I really liked taking it online because it allowed me to do the work on my own terms, but Angie is a great professor and everyone I know who has her in class enjoys being there! ENJOY!!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

“The Nigerian Barge”

I'm sure everyone has heard of Enron and their ethical issues that they faced. Well, that is what I decided to research for my ethical lapse assignment because I had heard about it before, but never knew really what went on. In a nut shell what happened was Enron mis-accounted for Barges that they had really loaned to Merrill Lynch. Enron wrote them off as a sale on their financial statements. Accounting is one of my least favorite subjects so its hard for me to explain how that effects the company in few words. From what I know Enron is violating the GAAP rules of accounting (of which there are what seems to be a million of). This is why their whole scandal was unethical. It's amazing how one change in the financial statements can ruin a whole company’s reputation.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Ethical lapses

Well it seems like there are a lot of ethical issues to consider in a variety of positions. In my accounting class we have to do two ethical cases during the semester. After doing those you really see how just making one minor adjustment to an income statement or balance sheet can count as fraud and totally hurt the company. Another example is the article we read on lying on your resume. It seems like unethical behavior is a fairly common thing in our society these days.

The article Ethical lapses distract U.S. workers, says that 73% of people have encountered ethical lapses while on the job. Although such a big percentage have seen these ethical issues in their work place, 14% say they have not reported the issue because they are unsure how management would react to it. 11% say their company has a lack of report such issues on procedures.

I guess I am not surprised at the fact that so many people have encountered ethical issues. This is because some people may not even realize what a minor adjustment they make to something could be considered as in their work place. And then there are those that do such things for there personal gain.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Paper vs. Web

Well first let’s state why the two are alike. They are alike because they allow someone to express their thoughts or a way to document something and get it out in writing. Next, they are different because of the way they can be presented. When you write something down on paper if you choose to ripe it up after or to throw it out then it is gone, no traces left behind. That is not the case when you write something on the Web. There is always a way to retrieve things that have been on the Web. When something is written on the Web it is available to anyone, therefore the likelihood of someone stealing your work is very high. Even if you think something is private there are numerous amounts of people who know how to hack into someone’s computer or files to find anything they want out. The sense of security on the Web can almost never be guaranteed. The most important thing to consider when transferring something from paper to the Web is to make sure it is something that you don't care who reads and don't care if it is always available.