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I'll be graduating in Spring 2009 with a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting after which point I truly don't know what I'd like to do with my life. I'm quite certain that I'd love to pursue a summer intership this summer with Parente Randolph, a major regional accounting firm here in the Mid-Atlantic, after which I'm going to hope and pray they'll offer me a full-time position. I'm also fairly certain that a month or so after graduation I hope to enroll in the Becker CPA Preparation Course so that I can successfully take and complete at least one portion of the four-part CPA exam in late-2009 so I can be "grandfathered" in to take and pass the remaining parts of the exam before Pennsylvania requires everyone to have a minimum of 150 credit hours in order to sit for the exam.
I'll then (hopefully) have my B.S. in Accounting and my CPA by the dawn of 2010. From there my future is uncertain. I hope to continue in a promising career path with Parente Randolph, but I see that many of my professors have these additional credentials and am honestly wondering what value (if any) they'll have in improving my professional expertise beyond the CPA. For example, if I hope to specialize in tax accounting at this firm, would it be of any benefit to my own knowledge or pay scale to likewise take and complete the exams to become a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) or Certified Management Accountant (CMA)? My institution (King's College) has built a very solid reputation for its accounting program, so I'm confident that Parente Randolph will hire me with only my Bachelor's Degree. Would I then have any benefit in heading to the University of Scranton in order to obtain my dual Master's Degrees in Accounting and Business Administration? Would my MBA permit me to rise upwards to senior accountant or manager level more expediently? Finally, I'm pretty sure I've ruled out my Ph.D. in Accounting, although it would be worthwhile to have if I ever decide in my 40s or 50s to leave Parente Randolph to pursue a position as a college professor.
Help!!!
Last edited by SteelCityRising; 02-29-2008 at 05:52 PM..
Reason: Typo
I'll be graduating in Spring 2009 with a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting after which point I truly don't know what I'd like to do with my life. I'm quite certain that I'd love to pursue a summer intership this summer with Parente Randolph, a major regional accounting firm here in the Mid-Atlantic, after which I'm going to hope and pray they'll offer me a full-time position. I'm also fairly certain that a month or so after graduation I hope to enroll in the Becker CPA Preparation Course so that I can successfully take and complete at least one portion of the four-part CPA exam in late-2009 so I can be "grandfathered" in to take and pass the remaining parts of the exam before Pennsylvania requires everyone to have a minimum of 150 credit hours in order to sit for the exam.
I'll then (hopefully) have my B.S. in Accounting and my CPA by the dawn of 2010. From there my future is uncertain. I hope to continue in a promising career path with Parente Randolph, but I see that many of my professors have these additional credentials and am honestly wondering what value (if any) they'll have in improving my professional expertise beyond the CPA. For example, if I hope to specialize in tax accounting at this firm, would it be of any benefit to my own knowledge or pay scale to likewise take and complete the exams to become a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) or Certified Management Accountant (CMA)? My institution (King's College) has built a very solid reputation for its accounting program, so I'm confident that Parente Randolph will hire me with only my Bachelor's Degree. Would I then have any benefit in heading to the University of Scranton in order to obtain my dual Master's Degrees in Accounting and Business Administration? Would my MBA permit me to rise upwards to senior accountant or manager level more expediently? Finally, I'm pretty sure I've ruled out my Ph.D. in Accounting, although it would be worthwhile to have if I ever decide in my 40s or 50s to leave Parente Randolph to pursue a position as a college professor.
Help!!!
Sound like you can be a government auditor... search usajobs, normally starting at a GS-9 with 2 year potential to GS 11. With your education easily a GM 13 in 4 or 5 years... ups of $140K...starting in $50K not bad...
CPA - if you plan to stay in accounting, this is the "gold standard." It is also the only one of the first 3 that realistically allows you to best hang up a shingle.
CMA - once you get into industry and you decide you want to stay there, this could be an ok thing...it is kind of superfluous after the CPA which carries more respect, IMO
CIA - eee gads - are you sure you want to be an internal auditor? they will try to sell you that this is the way to get to other places in a company, but this is often not true. Companies need to staff their internal audit departments and keep them staffed, so they need the bodies. It is doubtful they will release you to other departments. You might have to switch jobs to do that, meaning you don't want to linger in IA too long.
MBA - you know, the MBA is a different beast altogether...the CPA shows technical proficiency in one field while the MBA won't make you an accounting geek or a finance geek or a marketing geek, instead, it makes you a generalist destined for more top-down views. For some accountants, they make the transition to MBA-dom well. For others, it's too broad, so they revert back to the technical expertise and specificity required in accountancy.
PhD - wow, just wow...do you want to teach? You must be forewarned that, if you join a business faculty, teaching will not suffice. You have to write geeky scholarly articles or work with a couple of other people on producing textbooks. Here's what I've seen:
- person gets a business degree
- goes to a coat and tie job in a high-rise, then becomes disenchanted
- person gets an MBA
- goes to a coat and tie job in a high-rise that pays a little more, then becomes disenchanted
- person goes to get a PhD
- person becomes a "stuffed shirt" in academia...I have a degree in business with honors and could honestly tell you that I did not like most of my professors..I thought they were weird and cooped up in an "ivory tower."
My thought, if you didn't like business TWICE, maybe you should have become something else altogether rather than pushing onward to a PhD.
woah woah there boy not too fast now. I am on the same path as you expect i'll be graduating around 2010-2011. Personally I would get an entry level accounting job ASAP. Should be pretty easy to get with what you've got so far. It doesn't have to be the top notch firm or whatever just your standard part time 10-15$/hr job. When you graduate you can get rid of that job go to the internship and see where that takes you. It should be fairly easy to get some sort of accounting job with a BA. Also I would recommend you start studying for the CPA sooner. If you've actually looked at the study material then you will see that it isn't an easy exam. You really need to know how to understand, interpret and apply those concepts to the real world.
Once you've got your BA and your CPA so many doors will open up to you and you should just pick the best path at that point. So much could change from now and then.
I'm also at the same point as you. I'm working on the BA. I know I want to be a CPA but after that I don't really know.
One good thing about accounting these days is that you should never have to worry too much about being unemployed, especially if you are eligible, and determined to pass the CPA exam.
I am a recent college graduate myself with a BS in Accountancy (May of 2007). From my personal experience, getting an entry level job in accounting is not all good or all bad. I was at a point in my life where I had to have a job (albeit part-time staff/internship). So I decided why not in accounting. This worked for me because I got 2+ years of practical experience at a small CPA firm and was exposed to the WHOLE business while in school. After graduation I new it wasn’t for me, but it paid dividends in competing for the industry job I wanted and won. I should say, in my opinion, ALL accounting grads should get some public experience before making that decision. But if you know what you want, go for it. Industry accountants will tell you everything about their job duties if you want to know more.
Let me stress academic success now. Coming out of the shoot, CPA firms (and everybody else hiring accountants) will not emphisize your experience all that much. I know this personally and through former classmates. Firms don’t expect you to know how they do things. They will teach you “their way” whether you have experience or not. What they will NOT teach you (and will not hire you if you lack this) is a strong understanding of accounting that should be learned in college! If you get an internship position with a firm you like, take it, but don’t let that give you false confidence. That internship doesn’t mean you’re their savior or their next big thing. Focus on academics! Strong GPA+ COMMUNICATION SKILLS = more opportunities in any field.
The CPA is cream-of-the-crop as far as prestige, recognition, and transferability. Get it FIRST, and as soon as reasonabley possible. Don’t worry about extra study while in school. You’re already studying for it and you don’t even know. I have passed two parts in the last 3 months. It’s a purely academic exam, with ZERO “real world” situations. The review course material (I use CPAexcel), a STRICT STUDY SCHEDULE, and time is all you need. Besides, if you wait until you are employed, all firms and companies should/ will reimburse you for passing grades and pay for CPE requirements.
In closing, academics should be priority, then CPA. After you are licensed, then worry about what’s next. CMA, CIA, CFE, CFP, MBA, JD and the list goes on. Naturally, I’m going CMA (More profitable than CPA in industry), then maybe MBA or JD.
Be sure there are stable accounting jobs you can tap right away. Remember, a lot of the skunkwork is headed out of country to India, where it's done for a lot less. You're competing with a HUGE, very driven workforce.
CPA is still the best for a business/finance field. CIA (which I have) is good for an Internal Audit job but irrelevant for tax auditing or accounting. CIA opened lots of doors for me, you can become a career internal auditor but as someone said lots of companies shuffle people out of IA and even more companies just don't understand how to use the internal audit profession (usually clueless CFO's are to blame). I've moved above and beyond IA but, like I said, it opened doors. MBA is good but almost now a dime a dozen, used by people with liberal arts degrees that find out they can't get jobs with the BSBA in basketweaving. PhD is worthless unless you want to teach or want to become a professional student and go to campus Toga parties for another 4 years.
Any set of alphabets beside your name is good. Another option is to get the job first and THEN sit for the additional letter exams and have the company (if you get into a good one) pay for the training and testing. MBA's are usually done with a few years of practical experience under the belt anyways, and most of the other test require a few years of experience to be totally certified.
One you collect a few of these you can sit for the CPIM, CIRM, CFE exam, etc. Collecting those alphabets never hurt because, for the first ten years or so, you WILL be jumping jobs and that's what opens doors.
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