<p>Hello
If you're an accountant major or accountant...Do you like studying accountancy / being an accountant? What are the cons and pros? What do you know now that you wished you knew when you decided to become an accountant? Basically any information would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>One of my 9/15 clients blew up. I was in the office until 5am, slept 2 hours, and came back at 8am. I then worked a full day then proceeded to go out and wasted. Now I have chunks of happy hour food all over my floor. Good times.</p>
<p>So, I guess a lot of over time?..thanks.</p>
<p>Hahahahahahahaha Moss, GREAT response… hahahahah</p>
<p>I believe the phrase is pros and cons… not cons and pros…</p>
<p>But yes, I study accounting and I enjoy it thoroughly. It takes the right kind of person to really enjoy the work that is accounting, and there are allot of people getting into this work that do not enjoy it.</p>
<p>To answer one of your questions, I wish I had gotten better grades to help me compete for the top entry level positions.</p>
<p>ryhend88, before you correct somebody, make sure you do not make mistakes yourself:</p>
<p>a lot of people–not “allot of people”</p>
<p>BTW, it doesn’t really matter how you say that phrase. Some people look at cons first, and then at pros.</p>
<p>In all seriousness:</p>
<p>Pros</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Pretty good money. If you are good, the manager promotion will put you at six figures within 5 years of graduation - not a bad salary at all when you are 27-28 years old, and things keep going up from there if you can hack the hours, stress, and technical skills.</p></li>
<li><p>Big 4 is damn good technical experience. If you ever have meetings with directors/partners on your engagements that have been in Big 4 for 12+ years, they know a HELL of a lot. It’s pretty mind boggling because I thought I was pretty good from technical standpoint after my undergrad at SC but in reality, I didn’t know JACK. ZIP. NADA. There is a huge difference between what you learn in the classroom and what actually happens in the real world.</p></li>
<li><p>Big 4 will toughen you up. You will learn how to survive in a rigorous environment, learn how to play office politics, and learn how to succeed in such type of environment. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Cons</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Obviously the hours, stress, etc. I’ve worked 115 hours a week a few years ago due to the layoffs/bad economy which caused the firm to run lean. Things are a lot better now but peaks do happen (like when I left the office at 5am last Thursday morning).</p></li>
<li><p>Big 4 isn’t right for everyone. You need to have a certain type of personality to survive and succeed. A few traits that make a good employee are a self-starter, takes client ownership, does research/offers suggestions before asking the person above them, doesn’t complain heavily about hours/stress (you need to vent every so often), not a slacker, good time management, good ability to prioritize engagements, social attitude, team player, participates and carries themselves well in recruiting, comfortable with making presentations, good technical writing ability, etc.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>moss, I wonder guys how do you have enough time to pass the CPA while working so many hours; or did you pass the exam before you got hired?</p>
<p>The rule is to pass it before you start work or pass it as early as you can after starting work. It took me two years to pass my CPA exam while working full time (and I passed all parts on the first try). I didn’t have a life outside of busy season but I’m glad I made the sacrifice early in my career. The more experienced you are, the more work you will have, so it is best to get it done within the first 2 years of starting at a firm.</p>
<p>When you have downtime at work, just study. My schedule was to watch the Becker CPA videos when I got home at 6pm til around 10pm. Then if I didn’t have client work in the morning, I would review what I watched the night before from 8:30am-lunch time. Sometimes even when I did have some client work, I’d still study in the morning because I study best in the morning and I would leave the afternoon to work on client work. That helped to keep my chargeable hours up while getting some study time in.</p>
<p>I would do that 3-4 times a week + have a full day review/study session on Saturday and Sunday. Oh yeah, and make sure you get the Becker flashcards too. They really help (you can flip through them while you are eating your lunch and bring them anywhere you go to keep the material fresh).</p>
<p>I would then take a week or two of PTO before each exam (depending on the difficulty) to do a final review. Regarding the level of difficulty, I think FAR is the hardest (since it has the most material). Second hardest would be REG. Third would be BEC. Fourth would be AUD. </p>
<p>You’ll feel like such a loser for spending all day at the library or at Barnes and Noble on the weekends studying but its all worth it at the end.</p>
<p>moss, thank you for sharing 
I think you should modify this post a bit, and create a new thread, similar to taxguy’s thread. It’s going to be useful for a lot people interested in taking the CPA exam.</p>
<p>thanks moss! though, your answers are kind of turning me away from pursuing a career as an accountant. Does being a CPA involve a lot of travelling around the U.S or world at all? Is being an accountant rewarding at all (besides the pay)?</p>
<p>Travel can happen. Mostly to boring places where audit clients are but I got to go to Germany last year. Did almost no tourist stuff. We were there to work. </p>
<p>I don’t feel like I’m contributing to a better society by working in accounting if that’s what youre asking? Maybe if I worked for a nonprofit…</p>
<p>Is it rewarding? I’ll let you decide that after watching this video sponsored by Deloitte:</p>
<p>[Big</a> Four Tax Accounting - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p><a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube;
<p>[Tax</a> Season is back - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckkvbd_M5Dc&feature=related]Tax”>Tax Season is back - YouTube)</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>oh jeee thanks moss and toshemirov…:'(.</p>
<p>Those public accounting videos are great!!!</p>
<p>lol check these out:</p>
<p>[Hitler</a> Works in Public Accounting - YouTube](<a href=“Hitler Works in Public Accounting - YouTube”>Hitler Works in Public Accounting - YouTube)</p>
<p>hah this is another version of it</p>
<p>[Hitler</a> vs IFRS - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>stephaniealfl: Sorry but that’s the cold hard truth about public accounting that recruiters will never tell you about. I’ll try to be honest as I can at recruiting events but I’ll never tell a recruit that I’ve worked 100 hour weeks. I’ll let them hear that somewhere else (like on youtube).</p>