<p>I am a fresh graduate major in Electrical Engineering with no business course credit, but I really want to become a successful audit manager after graduation. ( I got my undergraduate degree in China.)</p>
<p>I know I can prepare myself my future career by getting a second bachelor's degree in Accounting or a master degree in Accounting. And I want to try my best to go to top schools, though I know from my current situation it is very difficult. I think if it is possible to first get a second bachelor's degree in accounting, then apply for an admition of a master's program in top school.</p>
<p>I don't know which one is better for my future career, please give me some advice.</p>
<p>I know people that got masters in accounting after a bachelor’s in economics.</p>
<p>Yes, those are more closely related, but in all honesty, not in terms of required courses.</p>
<p>There are many masters in accounting that do not require many, if any at all, prereqs (others, on the other hand, require a LOT). At most you might have to take an additional summer tacked onto the beginning of their program to get caught up.</p>
<p>Personally I would gun for the masters. I also happen to be trying to change fields, so maybe I’m a bit biased, but I DO have very close friends who went from econ to masters in accounting - and they hadn’t taken any accounting courses.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how easy it will be to get into a top school. You do need a top GMAT score. I just think getting a bachelor’s in accounting might be 3 years wasted when you can spend 1.5-2 years getting a masters in public accounting.</p>
<p>Plus the prestige factor might be a bit overblown.</p>
<p>Is 3 years getting a second bachelors really worth that time sink, for maybe a better shot at getting in the top schools? Hell is even a guarantee at UTexas (isn’t that the best one? Idk) over another great accounting school really worth 3 years of time, $90-$180k in lost salary (depending on what you’re making), and another $60k or higher in loans?</p>
<p>Look into the Master’s in accounting. Do some research with various schools to see what is required and length of time and compare both. Years ago, I was going to get a second Bachelor’s in Computer Science and discovered that getting an MCIS degree would take the exact same amount of time to complete as the second Bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>TrueAce, Thanks for your suggestion.
I agree it really cost a lot for a second bachelor’s.
Perhaps I should go to find some other way to strengthen my undergraduate business background.</p>
<p>XaviFM, the information you gave is really helpful.
I think it’s a great idea to get some credits by distance learning.
Thank you very much.</p>
<p>OhinMom3000, Thanks for telling me your experience.
I will do more research to make my decision.</p>
<p>Accounting is in such high demand that I don’t think you need to go to a tippy-top school to get a good job. What do you want to do with the accounting degree? Unless you want to be a Wall Street accountant or something like that, you’ll probably be fine at a school with a great reputation but not necessarily the #1 school for accounting.</p>
<p>I also think that you should go straight for the master’s. If you need pre-requisite courses, take some part-time at your local public college or university.</p>
<p>Agree with juillet. Do not necessarily need top school for accounting. I would also suggest meeting with a counselor at a target school to review your transcript, if possible, to get an accurate assessment of your options</p>
<p>I would agree that you should go straight to the Master’s program. You might want to find out what obvious deficiencies you have (i.e. classes in the undergrad acct major that you have not taken) and perhaps knock one off in the summer, but not necessarily. My wife had a BS in Philosophy (!) but studied mathematical logic, she went straight into a math M.S. and was very successful. Later she wanted to go into engineering (Civil/Environmental) and considered getting a second BS degree. She ended up going straight into the Civil Eng. M.S., but had to take a bunch of deficiencies, the core of the undergrad degree while already admitted to the M.S. program. This just made the program last longer, but she was very successful there too. Strong quantitative abilities transfer pretty well, and your potential committee knows it.</p>
<p>(Humorous side story. When I was getting a Ph.D. in statistics in a large, research oriented university that will remain nameless, we were told in no uncertain terms that we were not allowed into MBA courses (especially the executive MBA courses) because we would embarrass the other students in the course…)
As another complete aside, have you looked into actuarial science?</p>
<p>One other thing to consider, some/many jobs give higher pay to folks with a masters degree in any related subject over someone having a bachelor’s degree (no matter how many of them). This is especially true for government jobs.</p>
<p>Well, actuarial science is just too challenge for me. I really want to work in the Big 4 accounting firm in the future, so I have to plan my education carefully.</p>
<p>Actually, I apply for the position of associate auditor in Deloitte last year but was rejected after the interview. So, I really need to improve myself.</p>
<p>Auburn University allows for a MAc (Masters of Accountancy) degree to be completed via distance learning with a low residency requirement. The person would only have to attend the school for their capstone project.</p>
<p>They also claim in their advertorial that the person who holds the MAc over the person with BA level CPA gets an offer of 10% higher on average. But again this is advertorial.</p>
<p>I would really like to know OP how your research went. My D also got a degree abroad (we live offshore) and would like to enter into the accountancy world now. Here we have Big 4 offshore offices and many accountants still do income tax for US expats (like ourselves)… and locally the market is good as well. She’s currently working and wouldn’t like to quit her job so we’re looking for distance learning options… in fully accredited universities of course. </p>
<p>Please be kind enough and share any information. So far I’ve seen WSU offering it, and btw by previously holding a degree I guess a bachelor’s degree wouldn’t be that bad, just a year or two. I don’t know in OP case because he’s an engineer, but D would certainly use the training having her previous degree been more in the social science path (law and poli sci).</p>
