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Seems to be an ever growing field, with plenty of opportunity. I wonder what attributes make a good accountant. I'm intelligent, but never excelled in math and have always seemed to have never been able to balance my check book. Is that a problem? I'm sure I can be trained to be a good accountant, but must admit, I have yet to reaserch the field extensively. Just looking for a solid career that doesn't pay peanuts. I'd go into nursing, but blood, poop and nasty feet make me queasy
If you were not good in Math and you have trouble balancing your checkbook, then Accounting would be a bad field for you. Being acturate is vital. You MUST be able to balance accounts, not just simple check books.
My personal opinion is that you would be wasting your time studying accounting. I don't think that a person could be easily trained to be acturate. An accountant must also be able to detect and correct other people's errors. That's not always an easy thing to do.
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Originally Posted by CA central coast
Seems to be an ever growing field, with plenty of opportunity. I wonder what attributes make a good accountant. I'm intelligent, but never excelled in math and have always seemed to have never been able to balance my check book. Is that a problem? I'm sure I can be trained to be a good accountant, but must admit, I have yet to reaserch the field extensively. Just looking for a solid career that doesn't pay peanuts. I'd go into nursing, but blood, poop and nasty feet make me queasy
I always thought that accountants were born more than they were made. You have to be able to deal with some incredibly minute minutia, you do not need to be a differential equations whiz, but you do need to be good with numbers and you absolutely must be an extremely organized, analytical person.
I think nurses are born more than made as well. You have to have the iron stomach gene.
Totally shooting from the hip, but look into an associates degree to be an X-Ray technician or physical therapy specialist. You probably will not get rich, but I seem to harbor a suspicion that they do alright.
A second career really needs to be something that you've always wanted to do or your just biding time until your third career.
I appreciate the responses. I'm just looking for a good stable career. The job market where I live is limited, unfortunatly, getting into something I love might not pay the bills. I certainly wish I had that iron stomach gene, I'd get into the nursing field. And I had similiar responses from friends and family about the accounting idea. Basically saying the same thing as the previous post, I wasn't born for it. Interesting comment about the x-ray tech. I've had many people suggest that. The closest accredited program is at a community college that is 2 1/2 hrs. away. With family and home commitments, that would be tough. There is a local x-ray tech program that's not accredited. But I tallked to a local x-ray about it and he said he had never met a graduate and would advise against it. The business degree program (accounting concentration) also had options for concentrations in management, finance or marketing. ? don't know anything about the outlook those fields either. Thanks again for the responses.
I appreciate the responses. I'm just looking for a good stable career. The job market where I live is limited, unfortunatly, getting into something I love might not pay the bills. I certainly wish I had that iron stomach gene, I'd get into the nursing field. And I had similiar responses from friends and family about the accounting idea. Basically saying the same thing as the previous post, I wasn't born for it. Interesting comment about the x-ray tech. I've had many people suggest that. The closest accredited program is at a community college that is 2 1/2 hrs. away. With family and home commitments, that would be tough. There is a local x-ray tech program that's not accredited. But I tallked to a local x-ray about it and he said he had never met a graduate and would advise against it. The business degree program (accounting concentration) also had options for concentrations in management, finance or marketing. ? don't know anything about the outlook those fields either. Thanks again for the responses.
I don't know how true it is, but I have heard, from a couple of x-ray techs I know here in my area, that overall the market is saturated. Everyone decided to be an x-ray tech, now pay rates are down and no one can find jobs. Or so I've heard, anyway.
Similar situation seems to exist with sonography tech. It's something I strongly considered, seems really interesting, especially if you get to work with pregnant women who are "seeing" their babies for the first time. I have a similar problem here with no accredited program and people telling me that there are too many people, not enough jobs.
Then again if there is no school close to you churning out grads like crazy for x-ray techs, perhaps it would be more in demand?
I would definitely advised against any non-accredited health career programs from all I've heard and read about that.
Dental Hygienists make a lot of money and have a lot of flexibility, if you can handle dirty mouths. Then again if you could eventually work for a pediatric dentist it would be nice little kid mouths, not so nasty.
Respiratory therapy techs and physical therapy assistants make good money too... there are probably a lot of health care options that don't involve blood or poo, if you look into it more.
Accountants have a high suicide rate, as the profession can be quite stressful. If all you want to do is be an accounting clerk, that doesn't usually require an accounting degree. Of course, it doesn't pay that well either.
Accountants have a high suicide rate, as the profession can be quite stressful. If all you want to do is be an accounting clerk, that doesn't usually require an accounting degree. Of course, it doesn't pay that well either.
lol. im in finance and we have to take quite a bit of accounting courses. Every teacher has told us, to be good in accounting, you DONT have to be good a math. Im good at math so i dont know if thats true
The problem is mastering the debit and credit aspects of it....once you get those down its okay. The problem is that its incredibly time consuming. Many of my professors laugh about it...they say things like "This is going to take so much time. And we are going to make you learn it this way. But in the workforce, its all done by computers so its not nearly this time consuming" One problem is 6 pages of calculations and even missing one heading, means you have to do the problem all over again...with new values
Fun times. But if you can sick it out, its worth it i hear.
Good luck in your search, CA Central Coast!!! I'm in a similar boat as you. I'm exploring ideas for a new career once the kids are in school. The only difference is that I know that I revel in small details and can totally handle minutia. Editing was a large part of what I did before staying home with the kids, but it isn't anything to which I'd like to return. While I've never been stellar at math (calculus kicked my butt), I can do it well enough if you don't get any fancier than algebra. So, I was thinking about accounting, too.
lol. im in finance and we have to take quite a bit of accounting courses. Every teacher has told us, to be good in accounting, you DONT have to be good a math. Im good at math so i dont know if thats true
The problem is mastering the debit and credit aspects of it....once you get those down its okay. The problem is that its incredibly time consuming. Many of my professors laugh about it...they say things like "This is going to take so much time. And we are going to make you learn it this way. But in the workforce, its all done by computers so its not nearly this time consuming" One problem is 6 pages of calculations and even missing one heading, means you have to do the problem all over again...with new values
Fun times. But if you can sick it out, its worth it i hear.
My professors used to tell me that Finance was creative Accounting. Accountants like everything to the penny and in balance. Finance people perfer to round and estimate.
A CPA can be very "worth it." But, like any industry it's gong through some changes and jobs aren't as plentiful as once. I once considered the CPA route myself. Coupling the CPA with an MBA used to be solid. But, even that perfect pairing has its challenges in the job market.
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I'm sure I can be trained to be a good accountant, but must admit, I have yet to reaserch the field extensively. Just looking for a solid career that doesn't pay peanuts. I'd go into nursing, but blood, poop and nasty feet make me queasy
