<p>How hard is it? I just got out of the military and I am going to CC but plan to transfer to a public four year in Dallas for accounting. Everyone I talk to says its very hard. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Hate to post the obvious, but depends on your personal strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p>txn20, pleaase read the sticky post found at the top of this forum in the featured discussion section entitled "Everything you wanted to know about accounting." Especially read post number 1! This should answer your question.</p>
<p>In your first two years of college, you only take two accounting classes (Accounting I and II, or whatever else they call it, i.e. Introduction to Accounting, Principles of Accountancy, etc.). The rest of your classes are general education or business classes (Microeconomics, Statistics). Your Junior year is when you take your heavy duty accounting classes. </p>
<p>So basically, if you do well in Accounting I&II (or whatever it is called at your community college), you should be OK transferring. However, if you struggle with Accounting I&II, being an accounting major is going to be tough going forward. Kind of like struggling with calculus in community college and expecting to transfer to a university for an engineering degree. Possible, but very difficult. </p>
<p>FYI, when I worked at a Big 4 firm, I met plenty of CPAs that started at community college before transfering to a 4 year college. It's not a big deal, but it might be a little more difficult getting an internship. Good luck.</p>
<p>Good summary by esk444. If I can add one thing, let me suggest that you try to take an auditing class at a 4-year college in your sophomore year (see if you can enroll even just to take this one class if necessary). The reason I say this is that almost all the internship jobs you will want to get into to do well long-term will require that you do auditing during the first year/first summer.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>Calcruzer, can you clarify that?
The internship position may or may not include auditing work, but I would figure most firms would not expect rising juniors to have taken auditing.
Very few students are even eligible to take auditing before their junior year. It's offered as a upper-level course at AACSB schools. They are required to meet all prereqs and pass a second admissions process to take it. That means principles of economics, principles of accounting, statistics, calculus, english, intermediate accounting (also a restricted upper-level course) at a minimum.</p>
<p>Almost every auditor has told me that their auditing class was useless. It gives you same basic basic knowledge of how it should generally work, a high level overview if you will, but it is not necessary.</p>
<p>If you plan to get a job with a Big 4 firm right out of college, the single most likely position you will be interviewing for will be a financial auditing position. If you want to get this job, the best thing you can do is to try and qualify for an internship doing financial auditing during the summer prior to your junior or senior years.</p>
<p>As ferryboat10 properly points out, the ability to take an auditing class is generally not available until the junior year (since one has to take the Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting classes during the freshman and sophomore years). However, if you are an accounting major, quite often you can take these courses in your freshman year, then the Auditing course during the sophomore year (simultaneously with the Intermediate Accounting year-long course). I'm suggesting one either does that--or else take it during the junior year if taking it in sophomore year is not possible.</p>
<p>The reason should seem quite obvious--those who have taken this class will have a definite advantage when interviewing for the internship positions for financial auditing.</p>
<p>Southpasadena says that most auditors consider this class useless--well, yes and no. It is true that you still have to have experience in auditing to do it well (unlike some other accounting skills)--and it is difficult to pass the auditing portion of the CPA exam without actual on-the-job experience. On the other hand, understanding the concept behind internal controls, what an internal control is, and the method for performing an audit (working from a transaction towards the source data responsible for the transaction in certain cases and working the opposite way in other cases depending upon what needs to be proven) is something that can be learned in a class. And despite what southpasadena says, having taken the auditing class will give you the "foot up" in getting an auditing job or internship--which was the whole point behind my post.</p>
<p>"and it is difficult to pass the auditing portion of the CPA exam without actual on-the-job experience"</p>
<p>It is not. I never took an auditing class, and as a tax guy I've never been on an audit. I found the AUD part of the CPA exam to be the easiest conceptually. Now note I'm not saying it's the easiest to pass. But on the other sections it's possible to get a bit confused by some concepts. But on AUD it's either, did you memorize it or did you not? You'd have to be rather unintelligent not to understand.</p>
<p>Again, I doubt your claim auditing is necessary for internships. Firms, especially the big 4, realize they're not bringing seasoned professionals in. Their internship programs are intended to offer experience in public accounting and the firm, not cheap labor. They're far more interested in bringing in the high-achieving students they want to hire at the end of college and 150 credits.</p>
<p>They will teach you how to audit.They are bringing you in because they assume you can learn quickly. Take something you will have fun taking.</p>
<p>I think Calcruzer is overestimating the importance of taking Auditing. In Auditing class you basically learn the about GAAS (generally accepted auditing standards). Especially the provisions of GAAS that are frequently tested on the CPA exam. In my Auditing class we didn't learn anything about actual auditing procedures, except the few that are specifically mentioned in GAAS like analyticals, confirmations, inventory, vouching, etc. </p>
<p>When you practice as an auditor, you follow a audit program guide or checklist, which lists the specific tasks you must do. This guide has been designed to incorporate the relevant GAAS provisions needed for the audit. So no you really don't need to know anything about GAAS, you just need to do the steps on the guide or checklist. </p>
<p>When I interned at PW, all they made me do was things like pull figures from a report into a spreadsheet an compare balances in the current year from the previous year. If there were any significant deviations, I inquired with management on why and then wrote a memo with their explanation. I would also read the prior year's memo regarding a particular internal control and then interview the company personnel to see if their were any changes. I would then update the memo. I had no idea if the responses in my memo were OK or total BS. The stuff got reviewed by a senior and then a manager. If something was out of the ordinary, they would do the follow up with company management. </p>
<p>I also did a lot of copying and fetching lunch and coffee. </p>
<p>I had no clue what GAAS provisions were implicated, nor did I need to know them to do the job. Actually, the first time I ever researched a GAAS issue was when I was in my third year as an accountant. And even then it was very rare to do so.</p>
<p>Well someone creates those guides. One of the seniors edited the program for that specific client. But really what your going to be doing (comparative analytics, confirm control lists, etc) the auditing class will not be needed. Its great than you get to learn a little more about COSO or IA or assertions, but it is all basic material and the knowledge needed will be basic as well. Have fun before you work</p>
<p>Aswedc, note that what may be true for you personally does not necessarily apply to everyone. </p>
<p>I'm glad you found the Auditing portion of the CPA exam so easy. However, if you look at the historical numbers you will see that the Auditing portion is the section that more people fail than any other. In addition, for those who do eventually become CPAs, the numbers show that the Auditing section was generally the last portion of the test passed by most of these people.</p>
<p>The reason obviously relates to the fact that this portion requires more on-the-job training. Either that or else everyone is just not studying this section (trying to get the practice and theory section done first). I know they've changed the testing sections around since I took this test, but it is my understanding that the pass rates for each section have stayed about the same.</p>
<p>esk444, I'll say the same thing to you that I said above to aswedc--what may be your personal experience is not necessarily the experience of most people. Unlike your professor, I'm guessing most auditing professors do teach the auditing procedures. After all, that is the point of the class. </p>
<p>Yes, I've also taken auditing "refresher" courses where the person teaching the class did nothing but cover the latest FASB pronouncements--but that was usually only a 3 to 5 day course, not a full semester's course.</p>
<p>Lastly, I'm sorry that your PW experience was so much "rote" exercises, and not much at all on how to do auditing. All that tells me, however, is that you had a poor boss who didn't take the time to explain the job to you (which is what they are supposed to be doing with new interns--I'm sure you agree). From what you say here, it is clear you would have preferred one that would have taken the time to explain things properly.</p>
<p>The new Sarbanes-Oxley Auditing Standard 5 (which replaces Auditing Standard 2) does not allow use of this "checklist" methodology anymore (thank goodness), precisely because too many accountants weren't learning how to actually audit, but rather were following a standard checklist created by someone else and which didn't really allow for delving into areas where problems actually exist. The new standard does also require a "risk assessment" be the first thing done each year--along with the design and operational assessment of internal controls over financial reporting that will be tested.</p>
<p>Look, I've uncovered fraud or misappropriations on 7 different occasions, had two CFOs resign, and 8 people go to jail and/or pay major fines for their wrongdoing, including uncovering a theft of $11 million that made CBS' 60 Minutes show years ago. To me, the most outlandish statement I ever heard in my life was Dave Duncan (the lead auditor at Enron) speaking before Congress saying that he though there was essentially no fraud in almost all companies, and that he had never uncovered one fraudulent act in his entire career prior to Enron (and he didn't uncover any at Enron, too, by the way).</p>
<p>All that tells me is that some people have no idea how to audit--and some really don't care to learn, either. However, my question is why bother doing an audit if you really aren't looking to see if the controls are working or not. If you have no interest in uncovering the truth, then maybe you would be better off going into politics.</p>
<p>P.S. Also, I'm not trying to build up the importance of the Auditing class. My main point was not this--it was just that someone who has already taken the auditing class probably has a slight advantage over so one who hasn't. I agree with southpasadena that the most important thing is how smart you are, how fast you can learn, and whether you are a team player or not. Lots of time that's not so easy to tell in a one-time interview. I'm merely suggesting that taking the Auditing class will give you a slight advantage when it comes down to the decision on who is going to get the job. (Realize that there are typically 1,800 people interviewing for 400 positions each year, and you'll understand my point).</p>