Management Information System Reflective Journal

             Management Information System (MIS) is a compulsory subject that I have to study during semester 2 for my course : Accounting & Finance. Both my lecturer and tutor, Mr. Choo Wou Onn and Dr. Ho Ree Chan have taught me a lot of knowledge regarding to the subject and has made the dull subjects more interesting to be learning during lecture and tutorial classes.

            After 11 weeks of learning the subject, I have understood that what is actually an information system and how does it helps enterprise in growing their business in the competitive world. As we are slowly moving into an electronic world, businessmen are trying to imply information system to replace all the traditional methods as it effectively cut down the cost and the time consumed so that they are able to compete with their rivals. We cannot deny the facts that information systems actually contribute to prosperity of business, provided it is being used wisely and safely. Otherwise, it may lead to turnover of a company eventually.

            We were split into groups and were assigned to complete a video assignment which contributed 25% to our assessment. The aim of this task is to encourage us to explore and understand the role, importance and issues of information system today. After a series of discussions with my group members, we have decided to come up with the payroll system, which belongs to the transaction processing system (TPS). TPS is a computerized system that performs and records the routine transaction necessary to conduct business.

            While doing the assignment, I have gained a lot of knowledge of the payroll system. Payroll system is a system which keeps track of money paid to employees. The employees’ timesheet, name, identity number, and number of hours work per week represent a single transaction for the system. All the data are combined in various ways to create reports that are essential for specific departments. Payroll systems reduce management costs, liability and burden of administrative departments so that works can be carried out more effectively and efficiently. This increases the performance and profit of a company as well.

            Furthermore, it can also be used to take care of taxes on time. It will automatically and accurately remind employers to pay those taxes punctually so that no deadline is missed to avoid fine. It also helps to keep track of employees’ information so an employer can easily access to all the payment histories of that particular employees.

           Lastly, we actually do not face huge problem while dealing with the video as we have assigned our task earlier. I have learnt that responsibility and full cooperation are really important while doing work especially when it comes to group work. A good piece of work cannot be produced if one of the members does not cooperate well with other members. So we always discuss our problem patiently and solve it by picking the best suggestion. I am sure that I will have an edge over others by learning this subject when I am to work in the very near future.

Business Communication Reflective Journal

Before embarking on the assignment, we have come up with few discussion sessions in order to decide which shop to pick as our target for investigation. In the end, we have chosen Uncle Seng's Noodles House, a homemade noodle shop which is located at SS15. I was interested in how the owner manages the shop as efficiently as it has been ranked highly by customers. The business is very good because of the strategic location and also the quality of the food.

We have visited the shop and did a face to face interview with the owner, Uncle Seng. After the interview, I have fulfilled my expectation as I have a better understanding towards the operation and communication methods which the owner is implying. Furthermore, I also get some tips on how they make their noodles so that it distinct from the normal noodles. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to observe the process of making the noodles as it was done early in the morning. They have to prepare the noodles every day using fresh ingredients in order to ensure the tastiness and freshness of the noodles. Furthermore, another secret weapon of the shop would be the special sauce that is made by Uncle Seng himself.

Besides, we have faced some problems while deciding the interview time and thus procrastinated the interview for 2 weeks as Uncle Seng is extremely busy with his customers. For our group, we have difficulty in choosing a common free time too. Lastly, I have decided to make it on a Thursday afternoon where we were free and Uncle Seng was going to close down his shop. However, one of our members was absent due to emergencies. But we still manage to conduct the interview smoothly as I have done the preparation much earlier and the duration of interview was around an hour.

After the interview, we stayed at there for lunch. I have observed how he communicated with his workers and also entertaining his customers. He fixed them into specific job like so that the customers can enjoy their meal within shorter time. Upon completed the assignments, I have come across to bundles of new knowledge. I have realised that responsibility and cooperate are extremely important to especially when it comes to group work. A task cannot be achieved if one of the members does not cooperate with the other members. Besides, it is definitely not an easy task to start up a business and it is even harder to maintain the prosperity of the business as there are so many competitors out there. I have picked up some skills of managing and communicating with people that are really essential for me when I am to work in the future.

Management Accounting Reflective Journal

             In the subject Introduction to Management Accounting, I have learnt various new things which are totally different from financial accounting which I have taken in last semester. I would say that this is not an easy subject as it is quite complicated as I am new to it.

            In the middle of preparation for the assignment, I have searched a lot of information from internet and textbook. According to the question, I am asked to evaluate the pros and cons of both traditional method and activity-based costing (ABC) method for the process of cost allocation so I have visited the Chron. It stated clearly the differences, advantages and disadvantages of both methods. So far I do not face any problem in finding relevant sources because the questions are quite straight forward and all information can be obtained. Next, I have also looked for the details of the limitation of ABC method online regarding to the question as I could not find the appropriate answer in my textbook.

After attempting the individual assignment, I learnt how to apply the theories that are being taught by my lecturer into the real situation. As a producer, he or she definitely need to know what is the exact cost of each unit of product that they are producing so that the managers can have a better understanding in order to make decision for the pricing. There are 2 ways to assign the cost, that are traditional costing method and activity based costing method which is also known as ABC method. ABC method is generally preferred because it provides reliable cost information than traditional method.  It is very important for managers to have accurate cost information about their products so that they can have their competitive advantage among rivals.

Next, I also being exposed to how to allocate the costs and revenues for support departments using direct method, step-down method and reciprocal method. According to the question, I need to allocate the cost back to the production departments among all support departments using reciprocal method. Reciprocal method is chosen as it is the fairest way to charge back the cost compared to direct method and step-down method. Besides, as a business man, he or she needs to analyses all the factors carefully before accepting some special deals. To take as example, Kenneth has to work out all the cost and revenues that he will get if he decides to accept the order from T-bicycle Association. If the cost exceeds the revenue, he might reject the order.

In conclusion, this subject has equipped me with a lot of knowledge that I need when I have graduate as an accounting student. I will need to work out all the costs and revenues for a certain deal before producing and offering certain products and services. I have gained precious knowledge and personal skills which that would aid me in future so that I have an edge over others when I am working later.

Accounting Reflective Journal 3

         As a preparation for my final exam, I have been revising and redoing all the tutorials questions which have been discussed in class. Besides, I also try my hand on some extra questions given by my tutor. The questions are quite hard I would say but no doubt I definitely have gained some extra knowledge by attempting them. I might also be going for consultation hours to clarify my doubt. In my opinion, I personally feel that the module is pretty good as it has covers all the important areas in accounting.

Management Reflective Journal

             I believe that the word ‘manager’ is not strange among us. But I often wonder that is manager someone who only manages employees to maximize productivity of work? As a student in Accounting and Finance course in Taylor’s University, I am required to learn Introduction to Management in my first year degree. Through this subject, I hope that I will be able to learn more on about what a manager does, how to become a manager, how to overcome harsh conditions, what circumstances will they meet and how do they deal with it as they are the one who needs to make substantial decisions in an organization, and many more. I am quite interested in learning things that I have never came across with.

            Before getting to know the subject, I have been always wondering that what is it like the routine work of a manager, how they make decisions based on different situational problems and more. I hope that I am able to gain great managerial skills, to communicate well with people surrounding me after learning the subject as I am going to work in the future because the good relationship between people is very important.

        
           At the very first day of lecture, Miss Natasya, which is my management lecturer and my tutor as well, has introduced the first chapter of the subject which is ‘Foundations of Management and Organizations’. It reveals about the basic theory of management that who is managers and what they do in order to manage their subordinates well to accomplish organizational goals. . Basically, management is all about memorizing and application of theories in certain circumstances. I personally find that the subject is quite heavy because it consists of lots of theories, names and contributions of those well-known management researchers.

           As the studies goes on, I realized that the subject is not only about how to manage people or putting people in the work but as well as to plan what to do, organize the workers and tasks, to lead them in a correct way and to ensure that they have achieved their goals. Besides, managers have to also be able to make on the spot decisions regarding to different types of situations and many more. Decision-making is very crucial to every organization regardless of its size, types, areas and levels because the manager is the one who all the employees depending on. A manager has to really think twice before commit any action because it will cause huge impact on the organization.

         After 12 weeks of studying, for me myself, I absolutely feel that this subject is fairly momentous for working life. This is because managers have direct influence to his/her employees. The way of how a manager is going to manage his/her employees will definitely affect a company’s performance. If a manager has effective managerial skills, the organization members can work to the best of their ability and therefore uphold the reputation of their company.  

Accounting Reflective Journal 2

     Based on my result of mid semester test, I am satisfied with it and I hope I can get such presentable result in my final exam as well. Of course, I would need to give in effort to get the result I want. Besides, the weekly tutorial questions from my accounting lab have certainly guided me a lot in this subject. The questions selected are meant to examine my knowledge based on what have been delivered to me during the lecture and tutorial classes. They are very useful for my revision as well as the mid semester test.

Quantitative Method Reflective Journal

            In Quantitative Method for Business, I have learnt quite a number of new things which I was not being exposed to in lower level. In the first few chapters, everything was almost the same as what I have studied in college but the syllabus is getting tougher and complicated when it comes to almost the end of the semester.

            As a part of assessments for this subject, we are required to form a group which consists of 4 members for group assignment purpose. The question of the assignment was to determine the relationship between selling price of houses and its size (square feet). We have chosen double storey houses which are located at Bandar Kinrara in Puchong, Selangor area. Firstly, we collected a sample of 60 selling prices of properties, square feet and date of released from websites and rearrange them accordingly.

       
            Next, after getting the required information from calculation by using Microsoft Excel, we started to begin our assignment. I have to apply statistical procedures which I have learnt in lecture classes by calculating the mean, median, mode, interquartile range, variance and standard deviation of both selling prices and square feet to describe the data effectively. Coefficient of variation (CV) is a new formula I have learnt to measure the relative variation for distributions with different means. From the lectures and tutorials classes, I have realized that statistical method is more effective in presenting data than other methods because it reveals all the information in a data.

            For the next part, we have been told to display the output of the two variables and it was the tougher part of the assignment as well. Simple linear regression and correlation analysis is a new topic to me as I have never soak up such concept before. It is an interesting topic though as we can investigate the relationship between two variables quite accurately. I have to key in all the data to obtain the regression equation. After that, I interpreted the Y-intercept (price) and the slope (square feet) by providing relevant explanation. From the calculation, coefficient of correlation, r can be obtained and it is the one which measures the strength of relationship between prices and square feet.

            On the other hand, I have to form null and alternative hypotheses and choose a significance level. T-value is obtained from t-distribution table it concludes the relationship between price and square feet of houses. For the interpretation part,  R^2 which is the coefficient of determination is used to explain the linear relationship between the two variables. It is extremely amazing and I hope I can identify the bond among two variables which I would like to test on in future by using this method.

            Lastly, introduction to probability has taught me how to predict outcome of events using different formulae based on situational factors such as conditional probability, mutually exclusive events and many more. For instance, I have applied addition rule for two events in my assignment as well to calculate the probability for both events to occur. I personally feel that it is quite fun when you can roughly presume the probability for a certain events that you would like to know to occur. To sum up, this subject has definitely equipped me with lots of mathematical skills which is useful for me in my later studies.

Economics Reflective Journal

             Economics is the study of consumers’ behavior in the market and how do they react in consequences to the price changes. During my learning journey in Taylor’s University, I took microeconomics in my first semester and I personally feel that it is a fascinating yet a subject which requires a lot of reading in order to master it because it consist a lot of theories.

            The foundation chapters which are demand and supply, factors affecting demand and supply, scarcity, elasticity of demand are quite easy to handle as my lecturers have explained them very clearly during the lecture hours, provided that I have to complete the tutorial questions which are given to understand the syllabus better. Besides, I have also learnt about how and when the government should intervene the market to sustain the economy of a particular country by introducing maximum price and minimum price.

            In the other hand, economics requires me to draw and do a lot of graphs and calculations, which can be quite frustrating sometimes. But as I going on, I realized that the graphs actually helps me to comprehend the subject greater while also act as support and evidence to my answer when I was doing my previous assignment. However, in chapters like market competitions, long run and short run, the graphs are really confusing because they are many of them which look almost similar to each other such as AC, AVC, AFC, MC, MP, TP and so on. I actually took up quite a long time to recognize them and be able to draw them accordingly.

            While I was doing my case-study assignment, I have faced a lot of difficulties because I could not understand what the question expects from me. After getting advice from my lecturer, I slowly began to start my assignment. In fact, I have to apply the all theories that I have gained in my assignment to make it presentable. Bits by bits, I strongly agree that economics is the hardest subject among all because it always involves problem solving of complicated question which needs critical thinking rather than applying all the knowledge I have learnt and paste it as my answer. In economics, understanding outweighs memorizing if one wants to do well in this subject.

            To summarize everything, in my opinion, although economics is a tough subject, it is undeniable that it reveals me more about how the world works and how does a decision can have a huge impact on firms, markets, industries and national level. By learning economics, I have becoming more concern about the world’s issues and the causes-consequences of them, which was something I never bother at all last time. From this subject, I have gained precious knowledge and personal skills which that would aid me in future so that I have an edge over others regardless what sector of job will I be working in.

English Reflective Journal

            Academic integrity means "intellectual honesty". This includes honesty in the use of information, arguments, and in other fields related to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Students are trained to be honest for themselves and this can be reflected from their academic works such as assignments, essay as well as their personality.

            I have never been exposed to assignments before as I was an A-Level student back in college. However, since I have started my university life at Taylor’s University, I realized that working on assignments is not just a task to be done, but a soft skill I have to learn in order to enhance my personal development. During the class, lecturer has introduced UWE Harvard referencing system to us to prevent allegations of cheating, whether intentionally or unintentionally and it also acts as guidance for me in order to complete my assignments.

            Throughout the lectures and tutorials, I understand it is very crucial for every student to obey the rules of academic integrity which are being set by their own institution. This is to ensure that students’ works are based on their own backbreaking effort and they have actually gained specific skills from their learning experience as it is beneficial in improving their personality when they have graduated from university. Besides, it is also to nail down that performances of students are irrefutable and recognizable, for the sake of the reputation of the university.

            In fact, application always comes in when we have learnt something. I feel that academic integrity is an imperative skill for me as I can perform better in my academic work to reduce the plagiarism rate. This is because I would have to acknowledge the authors by citing the sources whenever I have quoted or paraphrase the information from other sources. However, by doing this is insufficient to score in assignments if the way of citation is done wrongly. Therefore, I must be able to identify the various types of sources and acknowledge them in specific ways, as different sources required different types of citations, according to how the lecturers have taught us and by referring to guidelines from UWE Harvard referencing system. It actually takes me quite a long time to get used to it but nevertheless I believe that it would eventually favor me in return.

            In a nutshell, integrity has driven me to be a more reliable and truthful person in everything I do. I have trained to learn from my mistakes and being responsible for every action I have taken and actions that I am going to take. I actualize that a company would not hire a person without integrity no matter how well they are in academic because they are fraudulent and they will not commit perfectly in their work. As a student at Taylor’s University, I have being trained on how to apply knowledge and theory effectively and this will definitely cause me to have an edge over others when I am going to work in future.

Accounting Reflective Journal 1

          I have been studying for accounting subject for roughly one month in university. It is a quite interesting subject I would say because when the accounts are not balanced, it makes me continue doing until I can get them balanced. Knowledge that I have gained in 'Introduction to Accounting' will definitely benefits me in my future career as I have learnt how to record financial transactions in business and present the information in various reports. With an accounting degree, I can perform many different types of jobs in this field because every company needs accounting services regardless of the size of organization as I am going to major in Accounting and Finance.