<p>It seems that business is a popular major and to do well you need to really stand out. I always thought id be doing something technical as a career since i do well in school and love to tinker. but now im thinking of going to school for business. what i want from life is to be able to have money to travel and have some fun. How difficult is it to become successful in business? and what are some good reasons to major in biz?</p>
<p>Business majors like accounting and finance are good for people who are very poor in math and science and still want a usefull degree.</p>
<p>Mustang, sounds to me that you would be a great consultant or venture capitalist. You should look into careers such as industrial engineering, computer science, finance, MIS just to name a few. Consultants get to solve problems, tinker, travel and make money...LOL your almost too perfect. good luck.</p>
<p>vtboy....how is accounting good for people who are very poor in math?</p>
<p>a) I hate science,
b) I love money :), and
c) I like business. :D</p>
<p>
[quote]
vtboy....how is accounting good for people who are very poor in math?
[/quote]
Addition, subtraction and multiplication are easy regardless of math skill. :)</p>
<p>i had a choice to make... I enjoy chemistry, architecture and business (finance). I went with the most straightforward.. i.e. the one with the biggest paycheck. If i enjoy multiple things pretty equally, why not make the most i can, right?</p>
<p>and strong math skills are necessary for finance... especially in upper levels (masters/phd with derivative tradings, etc.... )</p>
<p>You don't need extraordinary math skills, but you still need to be comfortable with numbers and be willing to work with them for accounting and finance.</p>
<p>VTBoy notes,"Business majors like accounting and finance are good for people who are very poor in math and science and still want a usefull degree."</p>
<p>Response: LOL, LOL</p>
<p>You obviously haven't taken any advanced accounting or finance courses.</p>
<p>Although accounting doesn't use complex math like Calculus or differential equations, it is a very hard major. It is usually full of CPA oriented questions, which are very tough. I know a number of kids who have studied for their MBA , and most will tell you that their accounting class was the hardest of them all.</p>
<p>As for finance, the upper level finance course consists of derrivatives. The math found in upper level finance courses certainly can rivel that of a math major. Just take ANY "computational finance" course and tell us how easy it is.</p>
<p>Also, for accounting majors, they usually must take math through a year of calculus. Finally, accounting also has a HUGE amount of material to understand and know. If you get a chance, go to your bookstore and check out the upper level accounting books for intermediate accounting and for tax. They can be as much as 4 inches thick of single spaced information. Accounting has so much information that it almost rivals that of organic chemistry in what you need to memorize and know. </p>
<p>Oh yes, I did take both accounting and organic chemistry. Thus, I do know what I am talking about.</p>
<p>By the way, accounting is more than a useful major. Accounting majors are in HUGE demand. Typical accountant can make as much as any engineer and have the potential to make a LOT more in private practice. Also, unlike engineering, a good accountant will rarely be unemployed. They are in big demand especially since the implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley law.</p>
<p>Finally,check out the background of many upper level managers at major corporations.You would be surprised at how many have accounting backgrounds.</p>
<p>The bottom line is simple: make friends with the accounting students that you meet. You may someday be working for them!</p>
<p>Hey taxguy,</p>
<p>Can't the jobs of accountants be outsourced? As far as I know, some of them have been outsourced already.. Probably the only accountants that won't be uemployed are those who directly deal with the sarbanes-oxley( which, according to me, are not the majority ) ... What is your opinion?</p>
<p>Some outsourcing can occur in any industry. Heck, Indian Radiologists are even reading XRays.</p>
<p>However, few accountants have been outsourced for many reasons.</p>
<p>First, in the area of forensics (criminal investigation), they need the investigators here. This can't be outsourced</p>
<p>Second, many accountants serve at internal auditors or ombudsman, which also can't be outsourced.</p>
<p>Third, Most financial statements must be audited using American standards of audit. The books and records are kept in the US. Thus, it would be difficult at best to outsource auditors. In addition, audits MUST be performed by US certified CPA's. I guess if India starts teaching the US generally accepted accounting principles and has a lot of people take our CPA exam, audits might be outsourced; however,this would be very tough to do.</p>
<p>Fourth: a number of accountants deal with financial planning and work with wall street companies. This has to be done in the US, especially for those accountants that deal directly with customers.</p>
<p>Fifth: Many accountants do computer consulting and set up internal controls,which usually must be done in the US.</p>
<p>Sixth: There are literally thousands of federal and state jobs for accountants that will never be outsourced.</p>
<p>I should note that I just touched the surface of some of the duties that accoutants perform that either can't be outsourced or probably won't be outsourced due to various uphill difficulties.</p>
<p>Bottom Line: Although some basic accounting or bookkeeping jobs can be outsourced, the majority of the work that accountants do won't be outsourced or can't be outsourced.</p>
<p>I was reading the Economist last month and they talked about how the accountants in India currently log into a software and access a database ( based in California ). They have the ability to access the data but cannot print or save it on their hard drive and in this way, are exploiting a loophole. They have also done certain certifcations ( or maybe a CPA too , dont remember ) which certify that they know the US standards.. Hence, that has been outsourced for sure. However, I see your point. Accounting majors will not all have to move to India since jobs will certain types of jobs will still remain here.</p>
<p>I'd like to emphasize some of taxguy's points. </p>
<p>Firstly, bookkeeping and information processing can and is outsourced (such as posting journal entries and entering basic information into a tax form). This is not, however, what most accountants do and it is certainly not what CPAs do.</p>
<p>You'll find that the vast majority of collge graduates that want to go into accounting end up starting in public accounting as a auditor. This is NOT a job that can or will be outsourced any time soon, especially under today's regulations. I work as an auditor for a Big 4 firm and I can tell you that at least 50% of the time I spent on my last engagement involved interviewing employees, discussing things that don't make sense to me with the controller and observing various business processes. These are not things that can be done from India or China. </p>
<p>The rest of my time is spent performing various tests involving records that are kept at the client's site. If you want to get technical, the client could send these items to another country, but that would never happen for two reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It will not be cost efficient. No matter how prepared you are, you're going to need to look at more stuff and you're going to need to ask more questions. It's much easier to just sit in the client's offices.</p></li>
<li><p>The client usually needs access to these records. If they are going to send them away, they are going to send you copies. Copies are unreliable and can be doctored. That defeats the purpose of an audit.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Finally, keep in mind that there is a lot on the line when a partner signs off on an audit. He's not going to send items off to a factory in India when annonymous people are going to evaluate documents--he's going to have the people he supervises in his own office who he sees daily do it. As it is, when a company located in Vermont (for instance) engages a CPA firm in Vermont to audit them and their subsidiary in California, the CPA firm generally does not call up their California office to work on that part of the audit. Rather, the partner in Vermont sends his team to California (no matter how close the California office is). Under the new PCAOB standards, there are strict guidelines for relying on another's work, and outsourcing these kinds of things just isn't going to work.</p>
<p>"Probably the only accountants that won't be uemployed are those who directly deal with the sarbanes-oxley( which, according to me, are not the majority ) "</p>
<p>It's hard to answer this question completely because there are so many different kinds of accountants, but if you're working in some kind of auditing or financial accounting, just about every day of your life involves SOX. </p>
<p>Tax doesn't deal with SOX much, but there's still quite a bit of tax work to be done that goes well beyond typing numbers into a computer. While tax is more suceptible to outsourcing, it is by no means in trouble.</p>
<p>There's also plenty of advisory positions that accountants have, which, like auditing, involve client contact and are not significantly affected by outsourcing.</p>
<p>As for VTBoy and Mr Payne, it's not worth it to pay much attention to them. They regularly troll threads trying to trash business majors without a great deal of knowledge or experience behind their arguments. Just because something doesn't involve calculus (and accounting generally doesn't) does not mean it isn't difficult or intellectually challenging. As I've said time and time again on this board, it's not worth discussing the difficulty of the math involved in accounting because that's not where the difficulty comes from--accounting has much more in common with Law than it does Finance.</p>
<p><i>Mustang, sounds to me that you would be a great consultant or venture capitalist. You should look into careers such as industrial engineering, computer science, finance, MIS just to name a few. Consultants get to solve problems, tinker, travel and make money...LOL your almost too perfect. good luck.</i></p>
<p>That sounds good. Are there certain classes that i should take for consulting? and is this a mostly self-employed profession? I would absolutely love to travel.</p>
<p>you'll travel until your hind end is raw...</p>
<p>there are self employed consultants, but they're always involved in the business beforehand (you have to know the ropes before you can tell people how to do things). but there are also major consultant agencies, and the bigger named ones are mainly management consultants... problem solvers if you will.</p>
<p>mckinsey, bain, BCG are the biggest names out there in mgmt consulting, but there are many others in various fields.</p>
<p>here's an article to read:</p>
<p>Taxguy you are too funny. A year of Calculus for accounting, almost no program requires a year of Calculus, even Wharton and Haas don't require that. </p>
<p>As for math that rivals upper division math classes, please get real. Their is just addition and subtraction in their classes no differential equations, no real analysis, no fourier analysis. No multivariate Calculus at all.</p>
<p>Sigh, VTBoy, you obviously are an ignorant troll;thus, I will no longer address you. All I can say is why don't you take two years of accounting and see how you do.</p>
<p>As far as taking calculus, accounting is in the business school. Some business schools such as CMU require calculus for all its business school grads. I had to take calculus when I majored in accouning. Interestingly, my son, who is also majoring in accounting didn't have to take Calculus, BUT he had to take two semesters of statistics,which can be almost as tough. My elder son had to take 4 semesters of statistic courses! If you think statistics are easy, take a couple of courses too and then make your ignorant comments.</p>
<p>wharton requires 2 years of calc (or equivalent) for all concentrations -- it's in the core.</p>
<p>taxguy you are the one trolling, I am telling you like it is.</p>
<p>Frosty get real they don't require 2 years of calculus, they require 1/2 a year or 1 semester of calc.</p>