<p>I think you are wrong. You go and try to take a tax accounting or auditing class and then come back and tell me how fun it was and if you would rather prefer taking an engineering class. Then the other thing you need to know is that it takes 150 hours as a requirement to sit for the CPA exam, and that means you have to take other classes at undegraduate level such as corporate taxation, tax research, financial accounting 3, and uncountable laws about all these ticky-tacky rules that you have to be able to understand and apply in a heartbeat and be always organized and absolutely precise. </p>
<p>I think that accounting is pretty much a very hard major, and VERY few make it through all the classes with a 4.0.</p>
<p>aj16 notes,"I think that the major difference between accounting grads and finance grads is that finance grads are FAR more passionate about their field of study. I know tons of people in finance who are happy with what they do (and not just because of the values in their bank accounts)</p>
<p>I have found virtually nobody in the field of accounting(except maybe taxguy) who is genuinely and pasionately interested in what their doing"</p>
<p>Response: I can’t say if you are correct,but I do remember a famous statement made by a billionaire: “If you perform services that others need but don’t want to do, you will get rich!”</p>
<p>What you said about accountants can be said about lawyers, dentists etc. However,these folks are laughing all the way to the bank. I will guarantee that very few finance majors really make a great living at it.</p>
<p>Tell that to all the Wharton finance majors who are laughing all the way to the bank working at IBs and hedge funds and in investment management firms; plus all the MBA students (including a lot of accounting majors)wanting to do finance at business schools.</p>
<p>All Wharton students have a BSc in Economics but a majority have finance as their concentration.</p>
<p>Accounting is looking at the past, finance is looking in the future.Looking into the future is infinitely harder; more risk = more rewards.</p>
<p>Perhaps at the lower level, accountants make more, but at the highest level, finance trumps accounting.</p>
<p>LMAO and everything accountants learn in school = relevant to jobs right? WRONG. Fact of life is that almost nothing you learn in school will be used on your job. Schoolwork teaches you theory, but most of the application will vary once you’re actually on the job. </p>
<p>As for which one is better, they’re both roughly the same. If you’re average or have no connections/inclination to network whatsoever, don’t bother with finance because you’ll probably end up as a barista at Starbucks. Accounting is advantageous in that regard because even if you’re average in accounting you should get a job. However, accounting for me was very uninteresting as a profession. As an auditor/transactions analyst at a Big 4 firm, you’re basically on the support side of the interesting work and get stuck doing the due diligence, doing research on the transaction, etc. A finance guy is the one using that info to make decisions, and thus has the better job IMO. Some people really do like accounting though, so it depends…</p>
<p>As for which one is harder, accounting is probably harder for most. There’s so many regulations and rules and whatnot to keep track of and apply and on top of that, you have to understand and memorize lots of information which makes it hard. If accounting classes were just quizzes based on what you learned last class with no midterms and whatnot, it would be the easiest class ever because none of the rules/processes are that hard, but because you have to know all of that ish for cumulative midterms/finals, it becomes extremely challenging. However, if you do your degree in accounting, you’re probably guaranteed an upper middle class lifestyle compared to your finance/marketing friends (I’m probably going to major in finance btw, but sit for the Indian CA once I move to India)</p>
<p>^ In terms of whether or not Finance is more interesting, Finance can still be very tedious and annoying at times (just my opinion). I’m taking this Finance course on valuation, M&A at Ross (Michigan) and basically all we do is case studies that are similar to real-world modeling work in i-banking and corporate finance (treasury side). Spending hours and hours modeling on Excel and making sure you get the technical stuff right while working on excel can be very grueling and extremely annoying and outright boring at times. I do like the big-picture stuff when everything is all done, but I wouldn’t say its any more interesting than the accounting courses I have had.</p>
<p>Cream’s assertion that accounting majors are guaranteed an upper middle class lifestyle compared to their finance counterparts is completely outrageous. ALL objective data available points out the fact that over the life of their careers finance majors make more money than accounting majors, and in most cases finance majors start out making more money as well. Accounting majors aren’t even guaranteed a decent job anymore because of people like Cream who have young high school students convinced it’s the road to security, which in turn jacks up the supply of labor in the accounting field, which then lowers salaries and job security. People need to be very careful about choosing a life in accounting. It is not what people are making it seem.</p>
<p>^^^. Immotion, you have made a LOT of assertions about earnings over the life of careers. Since there is so much objective data, what are your citations?</p>
<p>I bet he comes back with data from payscale.</p>
<p>Inmotion, if you truly believe that the words of a couple anonymous people on a message board are influencing the masses you’re a fool. The reason people have that assumption is because it is relatively true. At my school finance majors have dropped 30% due to the economic crisis. Accounting majors have risen 40%. </p>
<p>I was at a banquet on Friday and he partner at the firm I work for told me they are paying for the mistake of not hiring enough people the past few years. </p>
<p>Accounting is a much more secure field than Finance. End of story.</p>
<p>Furthermore, what first hand experience do you have with either fields?</p>
<p>I am applying for either accounting or finance next year.I don’t really know anything about both of them. Any suggestions for me? Which universities are considered financially and educationally reasonable? =] Thank you~</p>
<p>Lol obviously if you’re not worth a *<strong><em>, you won’t be paid *</em></strong> no matter what job you pursue. My point is that if you’re well above average in accounting and don’t screw up, you have an excellent shot at being at least upper middle class. Public accounting jobs are not that tough to get, even at the Big 4, compared to i-banking and other high finance jobs. All of those firms should get you close to 100k, which is upper middle class. Its not like finance where you have to be in the top 10% of the top 1% of schools as well as a solid network/ECs to even stand a chance at BBs/Lazard/Evercore. Compared to those jobs, Big 4 internships grow on trees and I’ve seen plenty of dingbats with 3.2 GPAs get in at Big 4/Public Accounting firms just by networking or demonstrating “soft skills” (in before, “I’ve seen 3.0s get into Goldman”…those kids are very well connected and are far fewer than 3.0 Big 4 kids). Also, even though *<strong><em>ty accounting students = *</em></strong>ty finance kids, I’d put a good amount of money that average accounting students have an easier time finding jobs than average finance kids. That’s the nature of the job: low risk, lower reward.</p>
<p>^hahaaah…why are you so serious? Just have fun and make up some lines. Just read it again. First two lines related to the Creamgethamoney’s statement that finance is more riskier than accounting, and I agree with it, and that’s why I write:</p>
<p>I don’t gamble–I always lose–that’s why I chose accounting.
Don’t assume that I’m a loser–I just can’t handle the risk.
All you people think I’m boring, yet I’m always brisk.
I can send you in the morning Becker’s compact disc.
I am a college student, who doesn’t even own his house.
But that’s not a problem, I will have it, when I will wrok at Pricewaterhouse.</p>
<p>^I don’t see anything bad in wanting to own a house, and work at Pricewaterhouse.</p>
<p>I don’t get why many people on these forums are so mean.
They criticize me without knowing what I mean.
And for those who say accounting isn’t great.
I would recommend to lose some weight.</p>