re: Accounting Majors -- Any experiences here?

Accounting is a great field as there are so many different areas and types of jobs-auditing, tax, financial, big firms, public, private, self employed, consulting, etc.

How are you enjoying your classes? What areas of accounting do you enjoy the most? I majored in accounting at Loyola, took the fifth year classes required to sit for the CPA Exam at LSU then worked at a wonderful cpa firm as a tax accountant.
Definitely an enjoyable experience.

Intermediate Accounting I and II and Corporate/Business Tax II are pretty tough but most others depend on your interests. Governmental Accounting was also terrible. The good thing about accounting is a lot of schools have online or independent studies like LSU and you don’t need a master’s just 5 years of classes.

Taking and passing the CPA exam is well worth the financial reward. It’s pretty tough but taking a prep class should help you a great deal. Some companies pay for you to take the exam and classes.

Keep us posted with your success. Best of luck to you!

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My age has worried me (I'll be 29 when I graduate), but honestly I'm also fine with going industry and never becoming a CPA.

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I switched careers at 30. Up to that point, I was in sales management with a BS in Finance. Got a job at a small firm at 30, began taking the accounting courses required to sit for the exam, took and passed the exam and made partner at 40.

It was incredibly difficult but I wanted it badly.

Don’t fool yourself into age being an issue. And definitely take and pass the exam. Don’t go through school and stop short.

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I will disagree with him about grades...you want to have great grades. Makes the whole process easier. There might not be a hard cutoff but they favor 3.5+ every day of the week. And that a something you can work on right now.

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I wouldn't say that I have magnificent social skills. They are fine when necessary but I'm a bit more callous than people (including myself) like. I'm 100% counting on my grades giving me an extra edge. I have a 4.0 currently, but I expect that will drop when I get to intermediate accounting.

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Public is not for everyone, but I believe it is an experience worthwhile. Most industry jobs "require" the experience before considering. Big 4 experience will get your foot in the door just about everywhere, but is not a guarantee for success. I hated the Regional firm life because they tended to overcompensate bc they want to be a big 4. The Regional firm idea of work life balance is 60-70 hours a week, but they let you have the weekends off. I loved the small firm life because I was able to touch everything, but I found it difficult to get interviews going up against firms with name recognition.

I always knew industry was my life, but I figured the best approach would be to start in public so I can come in at a higher level. Had a 5 year public plan, took almost 8 to land my first industry job. I know a lot of people that started in industry, but were stuck in lower level positions because the company kept bringing in people with firm experience for the desirable positions. Some are still stuck as a cog in the machine making comfortable livings. Others have spent the last 10-15 years jumping jobs every few years to move up the chain.

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Thanks for the insight. I really like the idea of public for experience purposes. Ideally I'd like to get to a point where I could get an industry position, but the idea of being a cog in a big machine doesn't sound terrible as long as leadership is strong. I work for a non-profit currently, and while it's a worthwhile job, even as a warehouse worker I see the perils of not having a ton of money. And while not every company will have shoddy infrastructure, I can only imagine the big boys don't want for much.

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Good luck to you. You have unlimited job possibilities and directions you can take accounting. You are making a good choice.

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Thanks. I read the entirety of your post and I appreciate the thoughtfulness. This will be my first year at BSU (currently finishing up my final prereqs at a CC) so I may be a year behind, but I plan to make up for it with social events and utilizing any resource BSU has available.

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Consider other areas in the industry as you work toward your degree. Not everyone has to become a big 4 financial auditor or tax accountant with that degree. Take some IT/security courses, take an internal audit course if available. There are plenty of organizations out there that focus on specialties that may interest you (healthcare, payer card, federal, InfoSec, CloudSec, etc.) And the Big 4 do most/all of those too.

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I left it out of the OP because I didn't think it was pertinent, but I am planning to double major in IT management. It's only about 40 extra hours because the prereqs are so similar and it's in the same college as accounting. And I need those for the CPA. I'll def try to sit ASAP.

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The difficult part of the CPA exam is putting in the time for it, consistently and sticking with it for long enough to get through before you run out of time in your 18 month window. It's mostly an endurance thing and making the time sacrifice of not being able to spend as much time with your friends and maybe family while you are working your way through it. The actual material isn't that difficult and is tested at a pretty shallow level. There's just a lot of it to go through, and you have to spend the time.

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That is what I am gathering. I'll have to be really religious about my time management.

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I didn't find Jr and Sr years to be the hardest. Like most everyone else, Intermediate I and II are the weeding out courses. If you can cut those and at least get a B, you should be fine with studying for the rest. It doesn't sound like that has changed much 35 years later. I really hated Business Law (I swear they gave me B Law on the exam because I passed the rest with flying colors and said, "this girl deserves to be a CPA!) and really disliked theory as I found all the numbered pronouncements (are they still FASB's?) boring.

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Thanks for this. Now when I get to Intermediate I and II and start to struggle I'll know that I just need to keep pushing and do everything I can to make it through.

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Get the CPA if you want 3 or more years in public. CPA will translate well for industry even though it’s not required. You could work your way up in industry if you start there, but if you want to jump from public to industry, CPA will help immensely. Also, if you go public, don’t do tax. It pigeonholes you to one specialty that industry doesn’t care about because majority outsource tax to CPA firms. Industry accounting wants knowledge of GAAP and financials.

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I will keep all of this in mind going forward. Tax seems like a drag, but I'm going to keep an open mind.

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TL:DR - Hiring process for on-campus recruiting is long and drawn out. Or at least it was in the early 2000s.

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Read your entire post. Really appreciate the time you put into it. It's cool to know some specifics about the process. I'll have a bit of a leg up on some of the younger people just due to age and knowing how to handle myself, but it's a bit nerve wracking when the university info is omitting important stuff (the demographics of the interviewers, the locations, etc.). I can only hope my experience with it mirrors yours.

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How are you enjoying your classes? What areas of accounting do you enjoy the most? I majored in accounting at Loyola, took the fifth year classes required to sit for the CPA Exam at LSU then worked at a wonderful cpa firm as a tax accountant.

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I don't think I've learned enough to know what I do and don't like yet. I'm only about 25% of the way through my financial and managerial accounting course this summer. I'm really trying to focus on grasping the material. It seems pretty basic, but I want to make sure I know everything I possibly can, even if it becomes obsolete when I start working. Friends who had to take accounting have told me they absolutely loathed ACCT101 but I'm so far finding it pretty enjoyable.

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I switched careers at 30. Up to that point, I was in sales management with a BS in Finance. Got a job at a small firm at 30, began taking the accounting courses required to sit for the exam, took and passed the exam and made partner at 40.

It was incredibly difficult but I wanted it badly.

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Pretty much how I feel at this point. I want it. I want to have a child(ren) and before that happens I have to be financially secure and a homeowner. Before that happens I need a stable career with above average pay.

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Good luck. It’s a rewarding degree if you put the effort in which it sounds like you will.

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Thanks man. Definitely gonna try my best.

Good luck with your exam.