The EMBA class gives us some flexibility in terms of the mode of attending classes, we could join the class online or attend the lecture in person. On this particular day, I decided to attend class in person. As someone who lives and works in Lagos, waking up early and commuting to work is kind of a routine for me. I stay on the mainland and work at Victoria Island, which is fair in my opinion, so waking up to drive from the mainland to Lagos Business School campus was an interesting trip. I was quite a distance. It was the longest I had driven in a while.
The first lecture for the day was Corporate Financial Accounting by Professor Owolabi. He gave us a recap of what he had taught us during the brush-up week which was basically the fundamentals of accounting principles where he explained asset, liability, and owners’ equity which formed the accounting equation. He also went ahead to explain the financial statements, which were Statement of Financial position otherwise known as a balanced sheet, Statement of profit or loss, statement of cash flow, statement of change in equity, and Notes of accounts. He was able to explain the different statements of account that non-accountants like me were able to comprehend.
After the recap of the brush-up, we dived into the topic of the day which was Transaction Analysis which he described as a business event having a monetary impact on the financial statement of a business. It was indeed an enlighting lecture personally and professionally.
We went on lunch break and afterward, it was the time for analysis of business problem. This was taken by Dr Anibaba. She wanted us to analyze a case in class, unknown to her it was not communicated that we were expected to read the case. She asked that we read the case in class. It was about eight pages long and we were expected to read for about 10 minutes. As soon as we were all done she started asking questions to know if we understood the objective of this particular business case. It was an interactive class where everyone participated actively. She showed us the structure to be used to analyze a business case. Firstly having an objective, she stated that if there is no objective there is no case, and being able to identify the right objective is a useful skill to have not just to pass the course but to make good managerial decisions in our places of work. We went further about using different criteria to make analytical decisions. When criteria are set, you can make an informed decision.
At the end of the class, she emphasized the importance of class participation and asked that we be better prepared for the analysis of business problem class. She expects that we would have read the cases before coming to class as it improves the class participation by the students.
She also asked our class coordinator to ensure that all future cases were available on the portal so everyone could read before the next class
