<p>Hi all, noob here. My wife graduates this semester with a BBA in Finance. She's still unsure which direction to head with her career, but she was looking at possibly heading back to the local community college to pickup some additional accounting classes to be eligible to take the CPA exam before heading out into her job search. Do you guys think this a worth while avenue for her? I'm not sure if she could transfer the community college classed over to the 4 year college to get an accounting minor from them or not, but she would have her CPA certification either way. Originally she wanted an accounting degree, but she was told that a finance degree with an accoutning minor would open more doors. Does she need the accounting minor (in the eyes of an employeer) if she has the CPA and the finance degree?</p>
<p>Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Frankly, an accounting degee with a finance or computer science minor would have been much better in my opinion. Finance opens up different doors than accounting and involves different job skills. I guess having a enough accounting courses in order to take the CPA wouldn't be a bad idea though. However, this involves a NUMBER of courses ,which would set her back at least 1.5 to 2 years.</p>
<p>I didn't realize it would set her back that far, we were thinking a semester ot two. She took some accounting courses as of part of her finance degree already so hopefully that helps. The job hunt seems a little intimidating, almost like the degree opened too many doors. She was told that with an accounting degree you become an accountant, but having a finance degree wouldn't be so restricting in that regard.</p>
<p>For the CPA she needs to take the following after her initial year of accounting:
1. Intermediate accounting I
2. Intermediate accounting II
3. Some colleges have Intermediate accouting III
4 Advanced accounting
5. Tax I
6. Tax II recommended
7. Cost accounting
8. Accounting information systems
9. Auditing
These are only 9 courses BUT you need to take Intermediate I in order to take Intermediate II. Advanced accounting and auditing usually requires Intermediate II being completed,but she might get departmental permission to take intermediate II with advanced acounting and auditing IF there is no intermediante III></p>
<p>I was thinking about the possibility of her geting an MS in accounting,which doesn't require an accounting undergrad major.However, that usually takes at least one and one half years. I would meet with a college advisor at the college and see what you can do. Note, community colleges don't normally have all of these courses, especially in advanced accounting. She may have to take them at your local state college.</p>
<p>Heres what the local community college offers:</p>
<pre><code> ACCY 101 ..Accounting I
ACCY 102 ..Accounting II
ACCY 103 ..Intermediate Accounting I
ACCY 104 ..Cost Accounting
ACCY 105 ..Intermediate Accounting II
ACCY 107 ..Income Tax Accounting
</code></pre>
<p>Obviously shes gonna need a few more from the local 4 year college.</p>
<p>We can probably manage to get her through these (money wise), as long as it's worth it to her career. Do you think it's worth the extra effort for the long term? Or is the MS in accounting the way to go? It looks like its gonna take her another year (at least) anyway. Of course the masters classes would cost us more, but we could justify that as an investment if a masters in accouting would mean more cash in the long term versus a BBA in Finance with the CPA. Although for the Masters theres the dreaded GMAT... Is the CPA worth having, is all this extra effort wasted? How much more weight does that have versus the Accounting minor?</p>
<p>getting your cpa is good for your career but if you want to go into the big 4, she should have probably done some interships beforehand. experience matters a great deal in the industry.</p>
<p>also, the courses you take at a jc is most likely lower division courses. i know at my university, you need to take most of those courses inorder to graduate with a business degree no matter what your emphasis is. i am a finance major and already took most of those accounting classes.</p>
<p>and for the cpa, some of those courses are upper division accounting courses which can only be done at universities which cost alot more than a jc.</p>
<p>unless she plans to do accounting as a career for the rest of her life, a cpa is not worth it.</p>
<p>from my understanding, AIS would be optional.</p>
<p>CPA is very valuable outside of public accounting. </p>
<p>And....internships are not "that" important in regards to industry experience. The larger firms take in a larger number of full time hires in comparison to the number of interns</p>
<p>The only course she will need at a local 4 year would be auditing, so that is not bad at all</p>
<p>It'll be nice if auditing is all she needs from the "expensive" school. I'm really hoping she can fulfill most of the requirements for the exam at the community college. The best scenario would be her getting a job and then them offering tuition assistance for the CPA classes.</p>
<p>tuition assistance is helpful but usually many don't take the offer because once you get your cpa, opportunities should open up and you don't want to be stuck at your current company.</p>
<p>paying for CPA classes is different than tuition assistance. </p>
<p>If there is a decent accounting program around you, i can be pretty sure that there will be at least one CPA review company pushing their classes on campus. Since they cannot consistantly focus on one school, they ask for campus representatives. You are not paid for the 10-20 minutes worth of work per week, but you will usually be allowed to take their review course for free.</p>
<p>I cannot be 100% sure that you have access to this, but it is worth finding out. And if they do, they want people with different graduation dates, etc, so some untruthful tales may needed, but you get the picture.</p>
<p>hi all im yasser
pleas answer me
i live in lebanon and i dont know if i shoud go to some place to get the courses of CPA or i just can do the exam online??????</p>
<p>Yasser, as far as I know the CPA testing is only done in the U.S. and you have to meet individual state education and experience requirements for licensing. It's not testing that is done online.</p>
<p>If you all have the time and money, the advice on a masters of accounting was a good idea.</p>
<p>Schools that dont require a degree in accounting have summer "boot camps", where you take ALL the master level pre-reqs during the summer, then you complete fall and spring semesters and you have your masters in acc. </p>
<p>Then she will have tons of job offers, I know from experience. If your interested check out UNC chapil hill or UNC wilmington's MAC programs...</p>