<p>hskid out of all the schools you’re looking at, the University of Illinois is your best choice if you for sure want to do public accounting. I go there, and all of the big 4 recruit heavily. It’s also considered either the best or second best accounting school in the country.</p>
<p>pierrechn, it isn’t a hard major at all. It is just incredibly boring to many people, so you’ve really got to be “into” it to get through it. If you aren’t sure about if you want to major in it or not, you can still take the intro class since pretty much every business major requires at least one accounting class. You will be exposed to the basics and determine if it is something you can put up with. </p>
<p>As for the math involved, you will have to take a business calculus class and a statistics class, but nothing complicated. For the most part, the accounting work is basic math. It might sound crazy, but accounting is really more about applying rules and laws than math. </p>
<p>For your other questions, it is kind of hard to say what an accountant does since the field is so broad. The common perception is just that you are doing taxes, but it is much, much more than that. It depends if you are a staff accountant, auditor, tax accountant, etc, which are all pretty different fields.</p>
<p>there is a 5 year program where you get your bachelors and masters at the same time. That is what I am in, it is nice since you start taking masters classes during your senior year. It seems to make it a bit more tolerable since you are taking a couple of relatively difficult masters classes at the same time as your easy undergrad classes. </p>
<p>The CPA exam is a set of 4 tests you have to pass to become a certified public accountant. The tests are hard (pass rate is somewhere around 50% or so? someone can correct me) and you don’t really HAVE to do it, but you’ll need to be a CPA to advance very far in your career.</p>
<p>i read that accountants can make more than lawyers ? so this has got me thinking i may need to change plans at first i wanted to do Marketing/JD/MBA now i am thinking BA and MA in Accounting and the CPA, do you know where i could find CPA type questions? i have already found LSAT questions (wasnt really hard you just had to read and pay attention to the question)</p>
<p>I’m currently a college senior at a University of California school and our accounting program is relatively new (5 years old). During Fall when all the accounting firms were recruiting, it was really tough to get an interview with any firm let alone the Big 4 companies. They technically recruit at our school but realistically only hire a few people from our school each year. Anyhow, I ended up with an offer to be an audit associate at one of the mid tier firms (ie GT/BDO). A few people have given me the advice (including a friend that is a senior associate at a Big 4) that I should take another position (maybe not in accounting but in finance) for a year and try applying again in the Fall for Big 4. Several people have told me that the level of experience (and respect) you’ll get from a Big 4 is just not comparable to a mid tier firm. Other people tell me that’s crazy and that I should just be happy that I was even offered a job at a mid tier firm. What is the truth about Big 4 vs. mid tier? Also, it is possible to work at a mid tier firm for a few years and then move up to a Big 4 firm? Thanks in advance for any guidance you can give me.</p>
<p>oceanlover that’s nuts. If you want to get into the Big Four you are far better off doing it from BDO or GT than from some non-accounting job…</p>
<p>how about like basic firms, how much do their accountants usually make? does every accountant how to work the 60hour weeks at times? i think that may be the only thing i can say that i dislike</p>
<p>Public accountants and tax accountants have to work those hours because of the strict deadlines imposed by regulatory bodies. They can’t do a lot of what they do until after the year ends because data is still piling up until then. They have to get a ton of work done before filing deadlines either for financial statements or for the IRS. If you are doing something more on the managerial side of accounting, like cost accounting for example, I don’t think you’d have to cram as much of your year’s work into a few months. Industry side accountants still have work associated with year end financial statements and dealing with auditors that show up, but I think overwhelming consensus is that they still don’t work as much during busy season(typical complaints from public accountants is that when they are at a client’s office they’re the last ones to leave at night).</p>
<p>There really isn’t a busy season for accountants in industry. Depending on your position, youmay have increased work loads at certain points in the month and during the year, but in now way does it compare to the busy season that public accountants have.</p>
<p>I’d like to become involved with international accounting. Is an accounting major marketable in places like asia, particularly China (HK, Taiwan)?</p>
<p>Companies need their accounting work done according to the country in which they are incorporated. So if IBM is an American company and has an office and factory in Taiwan it needs to have its accounting work done according to US GAAP(the American accounting system). If TSMC, the giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, built a foundry in the US they would require accountants who knew whatever system Taiwan uses(maybe IFRS, International Financial Reporting Standards if Taiwan uses that system). So if you are a foreign student studying in America and your country has a decent number of American companies which work there, you probably can expect to find work at home.</p>
<p>I am planning on attending Purdue University for my four years of undergrad with a major in accounting. My goal is to end up working for a big 4 firm. If I’m not able to land a job I would consider going to a more prestine accounting school to get a Masters in Accountancy. Purdue is not a school that’s AACSB accredited so would that make it difficult to get into a good grad school? Purdue has a good business school and it is definitely better than some of the schools that are accredited so why would they not be accredited? Would it be extremely difficult to get a job with a degree from a school like Purdue? Would going to grad school at a well known accounting school greatly increase my chances at landing a job like that?</p>
<p>Ok so here’s the deal.</p>
<p>I’m currently enrolled at a college taking accelerrated coures(5 & 10 weeks). If I double up on classes, i’ll be done in December.</p>
<p>Starting in November two of these classes will be Individual Income Tax and Corporate Income Tax. They will be overlapping each other as i’ll take one on tuesday and the other on thursday.</p>
<p>However, I have a break in June through mid July where there are not any classes available for me to take since I have so few left. But i’ve recently looked at a community college summer session and they are offering an individual income tax course and my college says that class credit will transfer over. The class at the community college will be online.</p>
<p>Problem is, it will run into my Advanced Accounting 2 class(10 weeks), and they will overlap for 3 weeks (July 18 - Aug 2).</p>
<p>My question is when and where should I take the Individual income tax class? Should I take it at my current college and overlap with Corporate tax for 5 weeks or take it at the community college and overlap with Advanced Accounting for 3 weeks.</p>
<p>Also consider, I don’t pay book fees at my current school because they are included in the tuition. I’d have to pay for the book at the community college(don’t yet know the price).</p>
<p>What should I do? Which would be the tougher route to take in terms of class work?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thanks for your answer, but what if I am a U.S. student and not a foreign student?</p>
<p>[qoute=Skooby]Starting in November two of these classes will be Individual Income Tax and Corporate Income Tax. They will be overlapping each other as i’ll take one on tuesday and the other on thursday.</p>
<p>However, I have a break in June through mid July where there are not any classes available for me to take since I have so few left. But i’ve recently looked at a community college summer session and they are offering an individual income tax course and my college says that class credit will transfer over. The class at the community college will be online.</p>
<p>Problem is, it will run into my Advanced Accounting 2 class(10 weeks), and they will overlap for 3 weeks (July 18 - Aug 2).</p>
<p>My question is when and where should I take the Individual income tax class? Should I take it at my current college and overlap with Corporate tax for 5 weeks or take it at the community college and overlap with Advanced Accounting for 3 weeks.</p>
<p>Also consider, I don’t pay book fees at my current school because they are included in the tuition. I’d have to pay for the book at the community college(don’t yet know the price).</p>
<p>What should I do? Which would be the tougher route to take in terms of class work? [/qoute]</p>
<p>Personally, I would take income tax at the college in which you are majoring in accounting.</p>
<p>That’s what I was thinking. I was just concerned about which overlap would be tougher to handle. I’d rather not overlap anything with the Advanced Accounting though.</p>
<p>I will have to travel an additional 25 miles to another location to take the Corp. tax class, but I can handle that.</p>
<p>How tough were your Corp. Tax & Individual Tax classes?</p>
<p>hello taxguy, i’m a transfer student in kansas and i am trying to make a decison in what univeristy to transfer to and i dont know yet, which university do you would be the best option i have taken ksu, ku and empoira in mind but still need assistance so i cannot make a dreadful mistake. thank you</p>
<p>and how would the job opening for a 19 yr old undergrad in acct, with gpa of maybe 3.7 be.
thank u</p>
<p>rexinine, sorry, I don’t know anything about Kansas schools. As long as your school is accredited, it won’t generally matter. If there is a “flagship” state university in Kansas, go to that one.</p>
<p>I will be attending the University of Illinois next year, which is ranked in the top 5 for accounting. Many Big 4 firms recruit there, am I correct? My parents seriously doubt the job prospects for any business majors right now and in 4 years. I know that you stated that accounting will always be a hot job but for how long will accounting be a hot job? Im just trying to convince my parents that accounting can lead to a job and $$$! thanks!</p>