<p>What are the different career options for accounting degrees besides public accounting?</p>
<p>I'm majoring in accounting (school doesn't allow double majors or minors in finance), but I'm interested commercial banking, insurance, and investment banking. I'm still looking into actuary.</p>
<p>Can I work in commercial banking? Am I really at a career disadvantage for choosing an degree in accounting with MIS/IT instead of finance?</p>
<p>Advantage with math or philosophy.</p>
<p>Of course you can work in commercial banking with an accounting degree. Commercial banks need cost accountants, financial analysts, auditors, lenders, etc… An accounting degree will prepare you for many job titles in a commercial bank, just be sure to expect a lot of grunt work your first year or two.</p>
<p>Accounting would work great with being a commercial banker. To analyze whether someone can repay a loan, you’d have to look at their financials, check ratios, etc. which is all part of being an accountant. I’d say accounting > finance for most banking gigs including investment banking (in before whisteblower comes in talking about engineers on wall street despite being too stupid to realize that investment bankers are basically glorified accountants or that I was comparing accounting to finance and not to engineering).</p>
<p>As a CPA and long time Bank CFO, I certainly think that an accounting emphasis can get you in the door. It can be difficult to get to I-banking as those positions are dominated by CFA types. </p>
<p>The bank accounting department is a decent track and financial reporting. The lending side is more turn and burn so if you don’t like quotas then stay away.</p>