Life as an Accountant?

Is there anyone on this forum that has experience in accounting, or knows anyone with experience in accounting, that could tell me what their career is like in this field? Is this a satisfying field to work in? If not, is there a better business field to be in? In particular, I am curious to know how the accounting career fits in with family life.

Accounting is a huge field. Do you have a specific area of accounting that you’re interested in? Just off the top of my head, there’s clerking/bookkeeping, public accounting (audit or tax), advisory/consulting services (which includes forensic accounting and fraud investigation), working as a controller/management accountant, working for a government agency, working in internal audit… It’s a pretty versatile field with a lot of different roles.

Overall I think it’s a fairly satisfying field to work in but how you feel personally will depend on what you’re interested in. In terms of family/life balance it depends on where you want to work. If you work in public accounting, for example, there are definitely busy seasons and generally less time off than in other areas. My friends who work for government agencies have a more steady 9-to-5 schedule.

[url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/511865-everything-you-wanted-to-know-or-should-know-about-accounting.html%5DHere%5B/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/business-major/511865-everything-you-wanted-to-know-or-should-know-about-accounting.html]Here[/url] is a pretty good thread here on CC by someone with many more years of experience than I do.

I am actually not exactly sure on the specific position, as I am just a freshman in college. However I know I have the ability to get a job in a Big 4 firm. I would like a job where I make a good amount of money, and have a good work/life balance for a family. Thank you for the link!