The project, which is completed in groups of five or six students, involves preparing written and oral reports that assess the audit risk of a publicly owned company. The assignment is designed to prepare students for real-world auditing, which is often done in teams, he said. Auditors from the Big Six accounting firms take part in the projects by reading group papers on companies they have examined professionally and by attending in-class oral presentations on the student audits. The professional auditors provide the students with written and oral comments on their projects. I think that is because it prepares them for the challenges of the real world.
Some students complain it's too much work, but there really is no free lunch.
It's also one of the more impressive resources of the University of Delaware. Debessay, who is a graduate of Syracuse University and Haile Selassie I University in Ethiopia, added that a grant from the CTE helped him to revamp the auditing course. An associate fellow of CTE, Debessay joined the University faculty in 1978. Debessay has served as a regional president of the American Accounting Asociation in 1988-89, and as an officer of the Delaware chapter of the National Association of Accountants. It's a competitve and prestigious award.