Bachelor of Arts
Major
Accounting is the discipline that turns what an organization does into numbers and other people can trust.
The Accounting major at Goshen College is a 56-credit undergraduate major that trains you to build those numbers, not just read them. You’ll learn the full accounting cycle, from a single transaction to a finished set of financial statements. You’ll learn cost and managerial accounting, how organizations use accounting information to budget, price, and decide. You’ll learn individual and business taxation. And you’ll learn auditing: the discipline that gives financial statements their credibility, and the reason the CPA license exists at all.
Outside of one required experience-focused course, there’s essentially one path through the degree. Every accounting employer, and every state board of accountancy, is checking for the same core competencies, and the major is built to deliver exactly those, in the right order. If you’re aiming at the CPA license, corporate finance, auditing, or a firm that will trust you with someone else’s numbers, this is the major built for that.
You don’t have to already be “a numbers person.” You have to be willing to get precise, every time, about what the numbers actually say.
An auditor’s signature means something because it’s backed by judgment, not just procedure. A set of financial statements is only as good as the honesty and rigor behind them. Accounting is one of the few professions built entirely on being the person other people can rely on to get the numbers right and say so honestly when they don’t add up. At Goshen, that’s not assumed — it’s taught directly, alongside the technical material, as part of what it means to do the work well.
So from your first course, you’re learning the standard technical core — the cycle, the statements, the cost systems, the tax code, the audit process — and you’re also learning to ask what a set of numbers is for and who is relying on them being right. That combination is what state boards of accountancy, firms, and employers are actually screening for when they interview a candidate: someone technically sound and genuinely trustworthy with what they’re handed.
It’s also a small program inside a small college. The faculty member walking you through intermediate accounting is the same person writing your recommendation letter and helping you plan your CPA timeline. You won’t be a seat number here.
Accounting graduates leave with genuine range: public accounting, corporate finance, taxation, auditing, compliance, risk management, financial services, analytics, executive leadership, and academia are all live paths from this degree, along with graduate study in accounting, business, law, and related fields.
Goshen College prepared me well for a career in accounting and finance through hands-on coursework, real-life case studies, internship opportunities, and professors who genuinely cared about my success. My SST experience in Cambodia was a highlight that expanded my worldview and ignited a love for travel and experiencing new cultures. But most importantly, I developed lifelong friendships and a set of values that continue to guide me today.
Seth Grimes '11
Senior Director, Corporate Finance and Investment Banking at Eli Lilly and Company
A number that’s wrong doesn’t just look bad — it costs someone something, and it costs the person who signed off on it their credibility. That’s the standard this major holds you to from the start. Wherever you end up — a firm, a company, a nonprofit, your own practice — you’ll be the person the numbers can be trusted to.
It’s a 56-credit undergraduate major that prepares you to build, analyze, tax, and audit an organization’s financial statements — covering financial and managerial accounting, information systems, taxation, auditing, and the business and economics foundation that surrounds them. You declare it with your academic advisor, and the course catalog lists the current requirements.
No. Most students begin with no prior accounting coursework — the major starts at the fundamentals. What it does require is a willingness to work through a technical, cumulative sequence where each course builds directly on the last.
You’ll be able to identify how personal values and ethics inform business decisions, and understand the roles and tools of the core business functions and how they connect.
You’ll be intentionally prepared for an accounting career, able to influence and lead others toward results, and able to identify problems, analyze information, and apply real frameworks to solve them. And you’ll be able to communicate that analysis clearly and work productively with people who don’t see a situation the way you do — skills every accounting employer tests for alongside the technical ones.
Yes, that’s the path most students are on. Indiana requires 120 credit hours to sit for the CPA exam; licensing requirements — including the 150-hour threshold many states set for full licensure — vary by state, so the right plan depends on where you intend to practice. Your advisor can help you build that plan, and Goshen’s 4+1 MBA pathway (available once you’ve completed 60 credit hours with a 2.50 GPA) is a common way students reach the additional hours without losing time.
No — the two majors overlap too heavily to count separately. Most students instead pair the Accounting major with a complementary minor based on where they want to specialize or what else they’re interested in; your advisor can help you choose one that fits.
Fifty-six credit hours, sequenced deliberately: foundational business and accounting courses in the first two years, the technical core — intermediate accounting, taxation, cost accounting — building through the middle years, and auditing and the capstone in the final year. There’s essentially one choice point in the whole plan: a required experience-focused course, which you can fulfill through an internship or another applied, hands-on placement arranged with faculty.
Both, deliberately. You’ll work through real case studies in cost accounting and auditing, and the required experience-focused course puts you in an actual accounting or business environment before you graduate. Many students land that placement, or a job offer, well before commencement.
Public accounting, corporate finance, taxation, auditing, compliance, risk management, financial services, analytics, executive leadership, and academia are all common paths, along with graduate study in accounting, business, law, or related fields. The degree is built to open the CPA track specifically, but it doesn’t require you to take it.
Scholarships make up a large portion of Goshen financial aid packages, which average almost $26,000 per student, not counting work-study or loans. As students in a business program, accounting majors may also qualify for endowed awards including the Sauder Scholarship and the Gorsline Scholarship. Run the net price calculator to see your own number, then talk it through with a real person in the financial aid office.
Associate Professor of Business
Professor of Economics
Carl Kreider Chair and Co-Director of Global Engagement
Professor of Accounting
Program Director
Department Chair
Associate Professor of Business
Assistant Professor of Business
Assistant Professor of Information Technology
Assistant Professor of Business
Professor of Accounting
