PHIL HANCOCK: Hi everyone.
Welcome to this short video on the master of professional accounting
offered here at UWA.
I'd like to start by just acknowledging
that the University of Western Australia is located
on its campus which is on Noongar land,
and that he Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land.
And continue to practice their values,
languages, beliefs and knowledges.
So, my name is Phil Hancock, professor of accounting.
It's my pleasure to tell you a little bit about
the master of professional accounting offer here at UWA.
In this short video I'll be giving you some information on the course.
Five reasons why we think you should think about the MPA.
About the practical experience involved
in the MPA and then finally some careers
that you can think about after graduation and there's plenty out there.
So, the master of professional accounting.
If you're studying full time it would require 18 months
if you'd done something in business as your first degree.
Or two years if you're coming from degrees like say engineering or teaching.
It is fully accredited so it's fully accredited
by both professionally accounting bodies in Australia.
The two largest ones, CPA Australia
and the Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand.
And you can see that's a lovely picture
of our campus on the side there.
So, the MPA is also accredited to allow you to
study the professional requirements
of the CA program.
So, what does that mean?
There's two levels of membership when you join
either Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand
or CPA Australia.
The first level is associate membership.
You can complete the MPA
without doing the CA stream, you'll be eligible for social membership
of both Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand
and CPA Australia.
However, we now have the opportunity for you to do the CA program
as part of your master of professional accounting
in the second year.
This is a great opportunity and it's the only one anyone in UWA
where you can do this.
So, what is the CA program?
So, the CA program is where you complete
five modules or five subjects
in addition to the normal subjects you do in
the master of professional accounting.
It is delivered by the Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand
and it's offered in partnership with us here at UWA.
So, the five modules
is the professional requirements.
So, this gives you the opportunity complete the CA program
which you would normally do after the MPA as part of your MPO.
So, when you finish our MPA and you've completed the CA modules
then all you have to do is your three years
practical experience to become a fully qualified CA.
Do you have to do the CA stream in the MPA?
No, you don't.
It's an option.
There's two streams you can do,
the CA stream or our other stream.
Either one is eligible for you to complete
the master of professional accounting.
And a reminder, you still need to complete three years
before you become a fully qualified CA.
If you completed the CA stream
and if you choose the CPA you've still got to do
three years of experience and complete the CPA program through CPA.
The Chartered Accountants qualification is recognized worldwide as you can see.
Many bodies around the globe recognise a CA from Australia.
So, great opportunities to move, travel and practice overseas.
So, five reasons why you should study the MPA.
Well, the first one is of course, it's fully accredited.
So, it's fully accredited by Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand
and CPA Australia.
So, remember if you complete the MPA without the CA stream
you're eligible to be an associate member of both audits.
However, if you choose the CA stream as part of your MPA
you are then eligible to become a professional member
of Charted Accounts Australia New Zealand.
In other words if completed the professional requirements.
So, you then only have to complete your three years
of practical experience to become a fully qualified CA.
This is very exciting
and a great opportunity
for the CA program to be completed as part of your MPA studies.
Now if you do this
more job opportunities, why is that?
Well, generally you're doing the CA program as you're working.
And so your employer whoever it might be is giving you
some time off to complete the CA modules
as you move through and work in that firm.
So, from an employer's point of view it's quite attractive
if you've already completed
the CA program because they don't have to
fund your time while you complete the CA modules
if you've already done that here with us at UWA.
So, that's a really big advantage for employers.
High quality teaching.
At UWA we value our teaching, it's very important and so we
are delighted that we have very high quality teachers.
Some national award winners on our staff.
And a final one, as I said,
the CA program is only offered in UWA
through the University of Western Australia.
You can't do that elsewhere other than
through chartered accountants themselves.
Practical experience.
Absolutely.
You'll be taught by staff who in many cases are either a CA or CPA.
And they'll be taking you through practical exercises
on many occasions, calculating financial ratios using
many of our databases that we have, the Morningstar database.
We have plenty of databases to use.
So, you're working with real firms, looking at the situation,
analysing their situation,
assessing how well they're performing or not performing.
Adaptive learning is a way of learning where
research shows that this is highly valuable for students.
It's like having your own personal tutor on call.
So, we do have some adaptive learning modules in some of their units.
And case study.
So, we have plenty of case studies
from around the world so not just Australia cases.
Dealing with all sorts of things including audit
failures which of course have occurred over the years.
Some large ones like Enron
and WorldCom in early part of the century in the US.
And some fairly significant failures
which we examine also looking at case studies from around the world
is one of the ways it's very practical
in doing the MPA here at UWA.
So, careers. What can I do?
There's plenty of career opportunities after graduation.
Obviously, an accountant working in many areas, on government,
federal, state, local.
Large organisations (INAUDIBLE) and smaller organisations.
Small and medium sized businesses all hire accountants.
You might become a consultant.
Or you might work as an auditor.
And that's often in the large professional services firms
like Pricewaterhouse, Ernst and Young and so on.
You might decide you want to be a tax specialist
and you might work on your own.
Or you might work in small organisations.
Or again for professional firms and of course self-employed
you might just simply set up your own business.
Many of my friends do run small accounting practices.
And that completes the review
of the master of professional accounting.
We look forward to welcoming here at UWA.
And making the decision to come and study
masters of professional accounting with us here at UWA.