Lets play Pick my Major: Accounting or Finance???
05-31-2007, 01:13 PM
#13
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I also went through an accelerated masters program. Be warned that it tends to be more expensive than undergrad credits, if that's a factor.
Trust me, you'll work your *** off no matter which major you choose. In my humble opinion, the accounting degree is tougher than the finance degree. It certainly was at my school...I had to put in about 50% of the effort in my finance classes as my acct. classes to produce similar or better results. Every school is different though I'm sure.
I would advise you to work as hard as possible to be as close as possible to being a "top candidate." You don't have to kill yourself to attain that, but no matter which major you choose, your GPA will be a major factor in where you can go once school is out. ESPECIALLY if the employment market ever tightens up, as it did on me in the early part of the decade when I entered the job market. I saw my employment options get cut by 75% in the last 18 months I was in school. The tech crash, Enron, and minor recession we had caused it of course, but it became very difficult to get a good job at that time. I had a 3.0 GPA in undergrad and got passed over by a lot of the best firms. It wasn't until I got the Masters degree and hammered out a 3.8 that firms really started looking at me. Again, the market was much tighter back then, but still food for though. It pays to be among the best and the brightest, every time.
That said, have fun. You'll never get those years back, enjoy the hell out of them!
I'm serious about visiting a CPA firm too. Come on up to Bellevue so you can see a little more of what it's about.
Rhett
edit: pay is pretty good, but the scales rise slow the first couple years. Once you've established yourself, it goes up fast. I'm on 3 straight years of 20% raises or better, plus bonuses.
Trust me, you'll work your *** off no matter which major you choose. In my humble opinion, the accounting degree is tougher than the finance degree. It certainly was at my school...I had to put in about 50% of the effort in my finance classes as my acct. classes to produce similar or better results. Every school is different though I'm sure.
I would advise you to work as hard as possible to be as close as possible to being a "top candidate." You don't have to kill yourself to attain that, but no matter which major you choose, your GPA will be a major factor in where you can go once school is out. ESPECIALLY if the employment market ever tightens up, as it did on me in the early part of the decade when I entered the job market. I saw my employment options get cut by 75% in the last 18 months I was in school. The tech crash, Enron, and minor recession we had caused it of course, but it became very difficult to get a good job at that time. I had a 3.0 GPA in undergrad and got passed over by a lot of the best firms. It wasn't until I got the Masters degree and hammered out a 3.8 that firms really started looking at me. Again, the market was much tighter back then, but still food for though. It pays to be among the best and the brightest, every time.
That said, have fun. You'll never get those years back, enjoy the hell out of them!
I'm serious about visiting a CPA firm too. Come on up to Bellevue so you can see a little more of what it's about.
Rhett
edit: pay is pretty good, but the scales rise slow the first couple years. Once you've established yourself, it goes up fast. I'm on 3 straight years of 20% raises or better, plus bonuses.
05-31-2007, 01:21 PM
#14
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Either way you'll be fine. I majored in communication and I work in Finance now.
From my experience, if you're not sure which way to go, take the road with more options. In this case, go with Finance. It's more about who you know than what you know. Making connections and networking is the best way to get into what you want to do. If you go with Finance, you can always get your CPA later and do accounting if you want. You may decide that you want a change altogether and go for an MBA instead. This is what I'm currently doing. I'm back in school (online classes) working on my MBA and planning a move to the marketing world soon.
Also, don't forget to enjoy college. It will be gone before you know it. Party hard!
Good luck!
Also, don't forget to enjoy college. It will be gone before you know it. Party hard!
Good luck!
05-31-2007, 02:09 PM
#15
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Depends on what you want to do... I chose Finance...
either major gives you lots of options in the business world.
My best advice would be to try to get into one of the top financial services companies (Deloitte, PWC, etc) when you graduate and work there for a few years. You'll bust your ***, not get paid alot... but you'll learn alot, see alot and give yourself alot of options in the future (when you decide what you really want to do).
I didn't do that, but that's the typical path of most successful accounting/finance people I know. It really depends on what kind of person you are, and what kind of life you want to live. It's all give and take.
My best advice would be to try to get into one of the top financial services companies (Deloitte, PWC, etc) when you graduate and work there for a few years. You'll bust your ***, not get paid alot... but you'll learn alot, see alot and give yourself alot of options in the future (when you decide what you really want to do).
I didn't do that, but that's the typical path of most successful accounting/finance people I know. It really depends on what kind of person you are, and what kind of life you want to live. It's all give and take.
05-31-2007, 02:58 PM
#16
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A few weeks on AW's VSE isn't a fair gauge of your financial abilities.
That's like saying you made money playing an hour of roulette, so yoy're going to do roulette for a living.
