A professional hockey player, a full-time robotics engineer, former military personnel and a host of international students – those are just a few of the 30 students who are participating in Poole College’s ASAP Program this year.
The ASAP Program is designed for non-accounting majors who have been admitted to the online or on-campus Jenkins MAC Program. The program covers a variety of accounting fundamentals – from financial accounting to business law – that undergraduate students who did not have accounting coursework need to grasp in order to be successful in the master’s program.
“Surprisingly around half of our students don’t come from an accounting background – which is different than 10 years ago,” explains Jay Arrington, Poole College’s associate director of admissions. “We’re seeing many individuals embrace accounting as a profession because it offers great job security. As long as there are businesses, there will be a need for accountants.”
Amy W., who began the ASAP program in April and finished in August before beginning the online MAC program, has worked in international development for nearly 20 years. “I enjoyed it, but didn’t see myself still in the field in 20 years,” Amy says.
“I felt like if I was going to ever do something different, now is the time. Most of my work has involved data analysis, so accounting is a good fit because it is a different application of similar skills.”
In the past, Poole offered ASAP as a five-week intensive in-person program. However, the admissions team recognized a greater number of incoming MAC students were full-time professionals who struggled to take time off of work in order to complete their prerequisites in-person.
Today, all ASAP modules are offered online and provide direct access to an instructor for one-on-one assistance. Students can take the courses on their own schedule before they begin the MAC program.
“I found it very helpful. First of all, it was a great way to get the basics I needed. It was definitely intense and a lot of information in a short period of time, but I appreciated the flexibility,” Amy says. “One surprise was that I went into the program expecting to like one subject and really not like another, but it turned out to be the reverse. I would not have expected that and I’m really glad I discovered that before going through recruiting.”
The program’s flexibility was intentional, explains Arrington.
“We want to offer a lot of flexibility in our MAC program to accommodate students from different backgrounds and life experiences,” Arrington says. “The ASAP program does a great job helping our students – many of whom aren’t coming straight from undergrad – get acclimated with being back in an educational environment.”
