Managerial accounting can be an imposing course for even the best student. Lakeland’s Milwaukee Center had just the right recipe to make this challenging course more palatable for students.
As part of its semester project, the managerial accounting class at the Milwaukee Center baked cookies and other desserts to allow students a chance to use concepts and terms from class and apply them to a real-life situation.
“In managerial accounting, we discuss manufacturing concepts and terms such as direct material, direct labor, overhead, contribution margins and break-even analysis. Instead of having students just memorize terms, I had them apply these terms in their manufacturing (baking) process,” instructor Dion Borkowicz.
Students baked cookies or another snack and tracked all their costs so that they could evaluate the profitability of their production. Students created PowerPoint presentations to show preparation and execution, along with their cost calculations and break-even analysis.
On presentation day, students delivered cookies for the class to do a valuable “quality check.” Cookie project snacks included cake pops, cupcakes and a variety of cookies.
Each student left class with a Tupperware container full of a variety of snacks, enough to fulfill anyone’s sweet tooth, all while applying valuable business lessons.