Choi complained that most people don't really understand what accounting is.

"Accounting is not just bookkeeping. It's more about how to read financial reports intelligently," he says. "Accounting is really the language of business."

And adults who do not understand that language, Choi suggests, are as inarticulate as adults who do not understand the language of mathematics, or the nature of language itself.

This "language of business," Choi suggests, is so fundamental that no one, regardless of their profession, can escape it.

"Eight years ago," he says, "I went out and taught accounting to people who provide care for the mentally disabled. They're real heroes, but what they didn't realize was that if they couldn't understand the accounting dimension, they couldn't go out and get the resources to execute their dreams; they couldn't qualify for state funding."

Widespread Interest

Despite the lack of an accounting course, however, there seems to be no lack of interest in learning the "language of business."

Last year, a full quarter of the students enrolled in MIT's fall and spring "Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting" courses were cross-registered from Harvard.