<p>Hi everyone, i recently graduated with a degree in accounting and was thinking of going for my cpa. Now i know that you need 30 additional credits to get the cpa, but do those additional credits have to be in accounting? i;ve heard that the additional credits don't help you for the CPA exam and they are only harder and more time consuming. Wherares if i pick an easier major like art or sociology i could finish in it within a year. So should i finish the additional 30 credits by taking sociology and art or should i pick accounting or doesnt matter?</p>
<p>It depends on your state; you should verify anything anyone here (myself included) says by looking it up your own self on the Board of Accountancy website for your state. Most Boards provide a link to the actual statute; reading the statute is better than reading the synopsis.</p>
<p>In my state, those extra hours can be in anything you want. I passed the CPA exam without any trouble with the bare minimum of accounting hours, having gotten an entirely unrelated degree the first time around, then gone back to school to pick up just the hours I needed to be exam-eligible. So I vote for “doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>Definitely check with your State Board!! </p>
<p>In Illinois, new requirements go into effect in 2013 severely restricting what classes are acceptable. The daughter of a friend graduated from Ohio State in June and just found out she had to sit for everything before the end of the year to be grandfathered, or she would be deemed inelligible to sit for the exam without further coursework! (She has the 150 hours - made of excess AP credits, and various “fluff” courses) She was in the midst of some extensive global travel when she got the word from the State Board. She had been planning to travel the world for several months before studying for the exam and taking the sections during the winter and spring. (She starts her job with a Big 4 firm late next summer.) She had to hightail it back from Bangkok and just got her first section done last week.</p>
<p>Don’t let this happen to you!</p>