I studied accounting at Brigham Young University. I was part of a new educational innovation that the School of Accountancy and Information Systems (SOAIS) called the "Junior Core." After I finished the pre-business prerequisite courses, I applied to and was admitted into the accounting Junior Core program.
The Junior Core program was designed for your junior year of school. The faculty organized multiple accounting subjects (audit, managerial accounting, intermediate accounting, accounting information systems, tax, and business communications) into four courses each worth 6 credit hours. We took two courses in the Fall semester and two courses in the Winter semester. Each course lasted about 7 weeks.
We went to class for three hours every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The faculty members who taught the topics mentioned above would rotate in the classroom. Sometimes, we would study the same business case for four consecutive class sessions but would consider the case from four different perspectives (e.g., audit, tax, managerial, and information systems). It was a very integrated learning environment.
We had about 240 students in the program that year. We were divided into four cohorts of about 60 students. I was asked to choose if I wanted morning classes (9:00 a.m. to noon) or afternoon classes (1:00 to 4:00 p.m.). I was with the same set of 60 students and instructors for both semesters.
Early in the fall semester, each of the faculty members in the program hosted a group of students (and their spouses or significant others) in their homes for an informal social event to get to know the faculty and students better. Annette and I were invited to Jay Smith's home.
The dinner was Subway sandwiches, chips, and salad with fruit punch in cups to drink. Jay welcomed everyone to his home, and we all introduced ourselves. One of the students filled a plate with food and picked up a drink cup. He decided to walk outside the house to sit on the back deck to eat. While the sliding door to the back deck was open, the sliding screen was not open. Unfortunately, he did not realize the screen was closed and walked right into it.
His red fruit punch splashed from his cup all over the screen. The mesh of the screen held the punch suspended like a giant vertical puddle of fruit punch. While it was embarrassing for the student, it was humorous for the rest of us.
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