<p>Hi, im new here and am currently a junior in high school. At first, I wanted to become a physical therapist and now im at business, and yes i will remain here lol. What i want to know is what is the difference between accounting and finance(majors)? Careers in those fields? Also, if i choose to do either of those as a major, what math should i take next year, AP Calc AB or AP Stats? sorry if these are stupid questions haha</p>
<p>Hello Idobidness; I just graduated high school 2 months ago myself. Finance and accounting both overlap in many courses and job opportunities. They’re a bit different however. Personally, I favor finance. Most accounting graduates work in accounting firms. Accountants work long stressful hours in the beginning. It includes a lot of number crunching. Accountants are almost guaranteed a job straight from graduating. It won’t be a glamorous high paying one, but there’ll be one. Usually they start out with around 45,000 a year working long hours. Finance teaches more in depth theories and overall, it’s more interesting in my opinion. If you plan to major in finance, than take AP Calc AB. If you plan on majoring in accounting than take AP Stats. Finance takes a bit more effort but in the long term, you can do more with it. What’s the most important though, is getting experience. Your experience is what determines where you’ll end up most. After a few years of working and gaining experience, you can go back to college and get an M.B.A. That can make you more flexible with job titles. It’ll broaden up your career opportunities. At the moment, I’m in the period of my life between high school and college. With that said, everything that I wrote is what I gathered from the internet and other sources. I haven’t experienced it myself, but this is the way I understand it.</p>
<p>Ok, yea they make more sense now, thanks for the input. I was looking into becoming a financial advisor…? As in managing money in a way. Do you know if that is a really hard job or if its what the bulk of finance majors do? I read in some other thread where someone said Finance majors are usually in the commercial banking or investment fields.<-- thats not exactly what i want to do. Thanks again for your post, it helped clear things up</p>
<p>Earning the title of investment banking will take a lot of years. If you don’t want to be one, than you won’t be forced into being one, nor will the opportunity to be one come up. Investment banking is a prestigious career. In fact, it would be my dream to become an investment banker. Finance majors usually DO work as financial advisers/analysts. They have a bit of competition as well, but its a decent career. Any career in the business field will be stressful at times and require dedication. If its something that you like though, than I recommend you go for it. If your grades will be top notch through out high school, than I would advise you to go straight to a high end university. Apply to as many top 10 b-schools as you can. Get a bachelors degree in finance. Than work around 5 years, and go back to get an M.B.A. That’ll broaden up your opportunities quite a bit. This is exactly what I’m planning on doing as well. With some motivation and if you devote yourself, eventually you’ll be making six figures easily. Good luck to you. Oh and btw, check out this website. It has some decent material.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/mba-investment-banking/[/url]”>http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/mba-investment-banking/</a></p>
<p>Oh ok haha, that was a relief, stocks aren’t really what i want to get heavily involved in. When you say there would be competition to get a job as an analyst/advisor do you mean like it would be hard to land a job right out of college? But as for the “top notch” grades in high school, mine haven’t been that way, my current gpa for academic classes from grades 9-11(1st semester) is 3.48… so yea not that great. I prob will get a Bachelor’s in Finance and MBA sometime as well, goodluck to you too man. Thanks for the help</p>
<p>Thanks Bidness, and anytime. As for the competition, it applies to promotions and moving up the ladder. You will easily be able to find a job if you do everything right. If you want to be getting promoted with time to better positions, than it’ll require some time and effort. Of course, it’ll all be worth it. The “business field” is very competitive in general; but like I said, if its something that you find interesting, than you’ll want to invest your time and effort into it. It won’t be something that’s forced.</p>
<p>Alright, i get it now, thanks. and One last question haha, for a finance major or just business related field, would it be bad to go to a Community College and then transfer to a better school, then to go straight to a 4 year thats not as good?</p>
<p>For something like investment banking/management consulting…no, not bad. Target schools will open up more doors than relatively unknown 4 year schools. Many people transfer to Haas, Ross, Stern, McCombs, UCLA etc. You still have to put in a lot of work though. I can only speak for Haas but all the bulge brackets/MBB recruit there. Along with the premier MM banks and even F500 companies. Compare that to somewhere like UC Davis (where I’m applying to) and the opportunities are night and day. UC Davis students drive up to Berkeley for opportunities.</p>
<p>I would take both Calc and Stats, but I would take Calc if I had to choose one. AP Stats is a really easy class and I feel like the only point of taking it is to get AP credit. You’ll probably have to end up taking Calc in college, even if you do accounting, so it’s better to get a good background in high school.</p>
<p>@emprexx- alright, thanks for the info, what are Ross and stern tho…? i know Haas is berkeley but not sure about the others. Also, how much easier would it be to transfer into Haas vs just applying there from year 1?</p>
<p>@ac- lol, i would not take two math classes, thats just me tho, and yea i’ll probably just take calc then. Thanks for the help</p>