Stay the Course or Go for Accounting/Finance? (CPA, degree, costs)

[viv_smi98]

Greetings. I'm 27 and graduated in '05 with a random liberal arts degree and no post-high school math courses. (I know now, don't yell at me....). I didn't know what I wanted to do for the longest and followed my mother into the library field where I've racked up about 12 years of experience since high school. I do not have my MLIS yet but I have been accepted into a program for the fall. For the longest I thought I'd just become a librarian, but now I'm bored with it and I've come to despise the field. The pay prospects and future job outlook scare me as well.

I have since picked up a real interest in finance. I'd much rather spend the next 2 years learning finance, business, or accounting rather than library science, but I'm afraid. I guess librarianship is my "Sure Thing" where I probably won't end up homeless and jobless because I do have so much valuable experience in libraries, but I feel a lot more passionate about getting into the business world and working with budgets and investments and things of that nature. But I have NO practical experience in anything vaguely business/finance/accounting related, and math was never my strong subject.

So would the pay and job prospects be worth my changing gears entirely and getting a MBA or MSA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, even though I have no background in it? (I would not get accepted into a top program, I already know. ) Or should I just stick with my safe bet of library school although I already can't see myself in it for the long run?

[linicx]

My friend has an MLIS and can't get a job. Did you ever think about being an Actuary as it can lead to Bank Examiner? There are 13 top rated Actuary programs in North America. ISU-Normal is one of the thirteen schools. Another friend has the degree. She does state, feeral, personal and business taxes in the US and then goes to London and does UK taxes.

If you love NUMB3RS it Is a good life.

[killer2021]

not to burst your bubble but EVERY field is flooded. Naturally what happens during recessions is that everyone rushes into the fields that are supposedly, "good." In this market everyone thinks that accounting/nursing/business/engineering is good fields. What ends up happening is that these fields get flooded out and are no longer good fields to be in. This is happening to all fields. People are just taking any job they can get and people are retraining themselves for the, "good" fields.

[TabulaRasa]

My boyfriend did his undergrad in English, and a master's in accounting after he got into the working world and his job led him to a position in fraud analytics. Studying accounting/finance at the graduate level is possible even with an unrelated undergrad major, but you will have to take some undergrad leveling courses before you can enroll in order to fulfill the prereqs for most programs. He's a certified fraud examiner and has done well, and is currently away at Anacapa training and is also preparing for the CPA exams later this year, to add that to his credentials. His branch particular branch of finance, that of large scale fraud investigation, is a pretty good place to be, but you have to be damned good at it. IMO, you also need to be really fascinated by it to stay in the field and do well. He's had a ton of people work under him to whom it was just a clock-in, clock-out job, and none of them have done well/stayed.

[Bhaalspawn]

Accounting/Finance at least has a real world application and businesses have an actual need for those kinds of services (even if the field is glutted in a recession). I suggest getting the Library Science degree if it is in fact a "sure thing" and trying to keep your loan debt and living costs as low as possible. Then if you can't get a decent job with your Library Science degree, begin work on accounting/finance and math courses if you want. You can probably knock out a lot of that at an inexpensive local county community college (just make sure the credits transfer to other state universities).