SEC Requests Accounting Data From Oil Firms

From the Wall Street Journal (online subscription required):

The Securities and Exchange Commission, fresh from scrutinizing how oil and natural-gas companies book their reserves, is requesting that oil companies divulge more in their accounting for exploratory drilling and other operations.

Finance majors often ask what they can do to make themselves more marketable. I almost always encourage them to take more accounting classes. For many of them, they'll start off in a position that requires them to use accounting data as inputs in some way (credit and collections, reporting, financial analysis, etc...). However, a typical curriculum only requires them to take one or two accounting courses. So, as end users, they often have little sense beyond the very basics as to the subtleties of how financial statements are constructed.