SRL Archive - NOTA

What are your thoughts on choosing Accounting as a major?
Its something I've been looking into, but need some more time to decide

Also, is anyone an Accountant here, who could give me more of an idea of how your typical work week/experience is with the profession?

Honestly my family is FULL of accountants, I personally want to be a doctor, however my Grandma is a CPA for a large corporation in Detroit and has been making roughly 450k a year for the past 6-7 years. She works roughly 45-50 hours a week, does quite a bit of traveling and loves it.

Ask yourself 1 thing…
Do you love numbers?

Not do you LIKE, but LOVE. If yes, then accounting is for you.

It's very repetitive, unless you work for like an accounting firm where you do a bunch of different businesses accounting.. you'll probably end up with multiple hats at a company, because if you're good, you'll have quite a bit of downtime.

My mom is an accounting consultant, she goes around to companies and organizes their books/accounting stuff, and fixes it, gets it all legal etc etc..

I'm not an accountant though, I have just setup a lot of servers for different businesses, and the accounting peoples are usually the most 'needing' of some better way to do their stuff, unfortunately I guess IT doesn't care about them at all, so they're stuck doing stuff ghetto ways

Accounting is a huge field…there are a ton of ways you can go.

I just finished up a 5 year uni program that gets you your undergrad + masters in accounting + cpa finished. I'm now working for one of the big 4 doing auditing work. Auditing is just one small part though and I will definitely not be doing this forever (I hated taxes way worse).


Basically you should just try out a few courses and see how you like it. For most people it is a big either love it or hate it thing. No need to force yourself in there, but it does open up a ton of business opportunities in the future.

As for typical day.. my job is really interesting, constantly finding issues, having to deal with new problems, being given things you have no idea how to do and having to figure it out… Those kinds of things. But you do learn a ton about businesses everyday. The only thing I don't like about it are the hours. This time of year you end up having to work 70+ on the worst weeks, 50-60 on the easier ones. That lasts from Jan - March. Pretty much the only reason why I won't be staying long term.


Long story I know. Feel free to pm me if you have any specific ?'s

Just ask @Sin pretty sure his dad is an accountant

From: Ashaman88
Accounting is a huge field…there are a ton of ways you can go.

I just finished up a 5 year uni program that gets you your undergrad + masters in accounting + cpa finished. I'm now working for one of the big 4 doing auditing work. Auditing is just one small part though and I will definitely not be doing this forever (I hated taxes way worse).


Basically you should just try out a few courses and see how you like it. For most people it is a big either love it or hate it thing. No need to force yourself in there, but it does open up a ton of business opportunities in the future.

As for typical day.. my job is really interesting, constantly finding issues, having to deal with new problems, being given things you have no idea how to do and having to figure it out… Those kinds of things. But you do learn a ton about businesses everyday. The only thing I don't like about it are the hours. This time of year you end up having to work 70+ on the worst weeks, 50-60 on the easier ones. That lasts from Jan - March. Pretty much the only reason why I won't be staying long term.


Long story I know. Feel free to pm me if you have any specific ?'s

How was the CPA exam? A lot of people told me its difficult and the # of those that pass it each year/whenever its given each year is low

And do you think your college 'reputation/name' plays a part in getting a job as an accountant at one of the big banks or a firm in general like Ernst&Young?
Or is it more of your internship/experience and college grades?

My old maths/business studies high school teacher used to be an accountant. The downside of lower pay outweighed the 1.less boring job opportunities 2.long holidays. It's your choice.
Do what you want in life - if you truly enjoy something the money will come either way. :o

From: Four
How was the CPA exam? A lot of people told me its difficult and the # of those that pass it each year/whenever its given each year is low

And do you think your college 'reputation/name' plays a part in getting a job as an accountant at one of the big banks or a firm in general like Ernst&Young?
Or is it more of your internship/experience and college grades?

CPA exam sucks…my college was great in that it let us barely take any classes the last semester and just study for the CPA. It takes a ton of time to study for each part and yeah the pass rate for each is pretty low (like 50's I think?).

College does play a big part depending on how ingrained they are with the firms. My uni pretty much gaurantees an internship and eventual job if you get into this program. But if you are not at one of the big uni's don't worry about it, you just have to apply and you will have a shot (We take plenty from the less heavily recruited schools). It also helps if you get to know someone at the local office you are going for. Most uni's encourage you to do the internship and once you do one, as long as you don't screw up big time, you will have a job offer right out of college. Does that make sense?

From: Ashaman88
CPA exam sucks…my college was great in that it let us barely take any classes the last semester and just study for the CPA. It takes a ton of time to study for each part and yeah the pass rate for each is pretty low (like 50's I think?).

College does play a big part depending on how ingrained they are with the firms. My uni pretty much gaurantees an internship and eventual job if you get into this program. But if you are not at one of the big uni's don't worry about it, you just have to apply and you will have a shot (We take plenty from the less heavily recruited schools). It also helps if you get to know someone at the local office you are going for. Most uni's encourage you to do the internship and once you do one, as long as you don't screw up big time, you will have a job offer right out of college. Does that make sense?

That does make sense.
Just a few more q's,
1. how long have you been working for them (If you dont mind me asking)?
2. When you audit, do you work alone or have other people work with you/get it reviewed for a final time before submitting to the client?
3. What was the worst experience you could say you had as working at your job, if you've had any bad experiences?
4. Do internships affect the chances of getting your job? Where did you intern at?

From: Four
That does make sense.
Just a few more q's,
1. how long have you been working for them (If you dont mind me asking)?
2. When you audit, do you work alone or have other people work with you/get it reviewed for a final time before submitting to the client?
3. What was the worst experience you could say you had as working at your job, if you've had any bad experiences?
4. Do internships affect the chances of getting your job? Where did you intern at?

1) About 8months now
2) You never work alone, depending on the job you will have as little as two and as many as 50 (my jobs have all been around 5 or 6). Your work always gets reviewed and none of it gets sent to the client, just to the higher ups on the job
3) Worst is just the unreliable hours, some weeks barely enough work for 40 hours then the next week pushing 75… hard to plan stuff during the week around that
4) Yes they do, if you do one you almost always get a job offer, but you can still get the job without one. I did my intern with KPMG and work there now (same city office for both)

From: Ashaman88
1) About 8months now
2) You never work alone, depending on the job you will have as little as two and as many as 50 (my jobs have all been around 5 or 6). Your work always gets reviewed and none of it gets sent to the client, just to the higher ups on the job
3) Worst is just the unreliable hours, some weeks barely enough work for 40 hours then the next week pushing 75… hard to plan stuff during the week around that
4) Yes they do, if you do one you almost always get a job offer, but you can still get the job without one. I did my intern with KPMG and work there now (same city office for both)

I just got back from my accounting class :P
Was preparing balance sheets, do you prepare those and are they difficult to file for a big company/client? We were just doing simple ones with the Debits and Credits

And, if I can ask, how much do accountants approximately make per year? And any more info on like the off time/sick/leave thing?
And are you in the AICPA or one of those union things for accountants? Is there any benefit of joining those?

From: Four
I just got back from my accounting class :P
Was preparing balance sheets, do you prepare those and are they difficult to file for a big company/client? We were just doing simple ones with the Debits and Credits

And, if I can ask, how much do accountants approximately make per year? And any more info on like the off time/sick/leave thing?
And are you in the AICPA or one of those union things for accountants? Is there any benefit of joining those?

Sorry this thread got lost to me from the 07 craziness

For BS and for Financial statements in general - we usually are not the ones who put them together, normally it is the company/client that does it (unless it is a small company, then sometimes we do). We just try and reasonable say whether those amounts are correct. Some of those things can get pretty complicated :/

Compensation: starting salary is in the mid to upper 50k's (i started out at 57K). With raises/bonuses each year. You get 5 weeks of paid vacation including sick days. You also get a few firm sponsored holidays (xmas and stuff).

And I'm technically not in one until I've been working a year (need a year of work to officially have CPA), but I guess it can help with contacts and I think you have to be in one of the orgs to have a CPA in that state (not positive though).