The Honors Student and Accounting.

Abstract The ultimate objectives in the Reports of the Standards Committee and reaffirmed by the Committee on the Scope of the Four Year Accounting Major may be useful as setting the limits of the Business School Honors program. These objectives are: (1) Education of the Citizen; (2) Education of the Business Man; (3) Education of the Accountant. Most honors programs which have been established in Colleges of Business Administration have emphasized the first and second objectives and have provided various means to accomplish these objectives. Seminars, lectures by outstanding authorities in their respective fields, sectionalizing of students for certain subject matter, all help to accomplish these objectives. It is however, the third objective which should command our attention and more specifically, the establishment of means and methods to educate and challenge the superior accounting student more than has been done in the past. It appears that most of the criticism leveled at the accounting graduate falls into three categories: (1) poor communication habits, (2) poor or no research ability, and (3) lack of knowledge of other business fields. Some of these criticisms are not restricted to the accounting student, for many educators deplore the lack of good research habits and the poor writing and oral abilities of all students. This does not lessen the responsibility of the accounting teacher to remedy the situation if possible. It is expected that the superior accounting student of today will be the outstanding researcher or practitioner in years to come. Is it not desirable, then, to recognize these problem areas in the development of programs for the exceptional accounting student so that he will be better prepared to lead in the development of better accounting theory, principles, and practice?