About to enter college and faced with the decision of what major I should go into. At the moment I'm leaning towards accounting
My reasoning is that the business skills, good starting salary, and room for job growth would give me the money and experience to go into something entrepreneurial by the time I was in my late 20's. It seems like a major with which you can't really go wrong...
BUT
I'm not a numbers guy. I'm in my highschools higher-tier math class, but I'm not very interested in math, I don't get great grades in Calculus, and I'm not a "detail-oriented" person. I'm always making small fuck ups, especially when it comes to math problems or filling out forms. These seem like major barriers to being an accountant.
So, do you think I should look into a different profession, or are these barriers I could surmount with hard study and practice? Wondering what Accountant majors and grads think about my prospects here
Comp sci/software engineering
Or plumbing/electrician trade
>>1165897
Thanks for the explanation, very helpful.
>>1165907
High salaries
>I'm not a "detail-oriented" person. I'm always making small fuck ups, especially when it comes to math problems or filling out forms
In my experience, this is something you will get better at when you are paid for it.
As for accounting, it really depends on what you want to do. I started out in accounting but didn't really like it, so I changed my major to econ/stats, Most of my friends did it though, because we went to a school with a good program.
At my university it was split three ways: tax, audit, and corporate. My best friend is doing corporate accounting for a oil company based out of Colorado. He seems to like the culture at this company and it pays much better than his big 4 offers. My roommates girlfriend on the other hand does audit. She just finished an internship with Deloitte and will start a masters program next month before interning at PWC in the summer and finally finishing in December. Surprisingly, the Deloitte offer kinda sucks so she is waiting to see how PWC goes. Corporate culture at Deloitte is nuts. They pay you for a 40hr work week and make you work 60+ hours. Also, apparently the experience you have with audit depends on the client you work with. I have a friend who works for Grant Thornton as a tax accountant. He seems to like it, but I don't know much about it because tax is insanely boring.
Hope this helps.
>>1165957
Thanks, that's relieving to hear. What did you dislike about accounting that convinced you to switch? I was actually thinking about an econ major too for a while, since I'm more of a "big picture" person and I enjoy the theory
How much math is involved in the accounting major? I dropped out of uni a year or so ago because I failed some calc courses. It wasn't that hard in retrospect, but I couldn't bring myself to sit and focus on studying. But that's a whole other story.
So my question is how much of theoretical mathematics is involved in accounting?
>>1165978
There is very little quantitative analysis. A/R and A/P shit is stuff they make kids out of highschool do. At my university they made you take calc 1 and stats 1 to get a accounting major. Pretty easy in my opinion and I wouldn't even say I am that great at math. Obviously, there is math in the other core accounting classes, but its not too bad. I chose to change because I could take more Calc, stats, programming classes in econ.
>>1166026
Very little
Obviously it's different from uni to uni but at my uni we had to do stat's and econ in 1st year
But in second and third all the maths comes from finance which is pretty easy I suppose
There is very little maths in pure accounting
It's addition subtraction multiplication some division and maybe percentages
That's basically it
>>1166044
Same. Econ you had to do at my university as well. Micro had the most math but still pretty easy on the introductory level.
>>1166039
Wtf, currently doing bach of accounting (ausfag) and literally do one subject of statistics... Most is just basic arithmetic
>I'm not a numbers guy. I'm in my highschools higher-tier math class, but I'm not very interested in math, I don't get great grades in Calculus, and I'm not a "detail-oriented" person. I'm always making small fuck ups, especially when it comes to math problems or filling out forms. These seem like major barriers to being an accountant.
I wouldn't do it. Accounting is for very analytical people. I was similar to you in I didn't like math but for me it was more traditional math, once I did accounting I loved it. Fuck ups happen all the time and aren't a big deal but if you don't like math you probably won't like it
>>1166154
You didn't have to do Econ or Calc?
>>1165887
Maths isn't a problem (very basic) but if you're not a details-oriented person, forget about it. You'll want to kill yourself.
t. Guy who is not great at maths, did fine with accounting maths but dropped out after 2 years because way too much boring details
>>1166224
Ausfag here
No calculus
Two level 100 econ subjects
One level 100 statistics subject
That's literally all the maths we do
>>1166026
There's some basic financial math, like for a loan repayment, how much of it is principal or interest.
If you're getting a BBA in accounting, you'll probably have to take a couple statistics classes. That became more about how to read descriptive stats in excel more than math.
>>1166160
Is right about the analytics. Like you can force yourself to do it if you aren't into details, but it will be pretty hard work. As
>>1165957
said, you'll end up getting a decent salary for 40h weeks, but then you'll do 20h of unpaid overtime on top of that.
>>1165887
>I'm not a numbers guy. I'm in my highschools higher-tier math class, but I'm not very interested in math, I don't get great grades in Calculus, and I'm not a "detail-oriented" person. I'm always making small fuck ups, especially when it comes to math problems or filling out forms. These seem like major barriers to being an accountant.
You'll probably hate accounting then.
You're me 3 years ago OP. I was highly skeptical of college but it was sort of forced onto me, so I figured I'd get a vocational degree (accounting) because I thought I'd get a job and business skills. Now I'm about to drop out because I hate it so much, I want to kill myself every second in class and feel so free whenever I'm on my own time.
Go into a trade or something...real life is so much better than school/corporate world.
>>1166331
Recommended trade skills? I live in the Midwest USA. Was thinking welding, but I hear anecdotes of it fucking up your health. I want to do underwater welding or deep north welding so I assume I'd be somewhat protected.
>>1166339
>underwater welding
That fucks your body up and you have to spend days or weeks in isolation or with one person. Welding isn't bad but be prepared to lose 15+ years of your life if you do underwater welding. Plumbing and Electrical work takes a way lighter toll on your body.
>>1166331
fuck, I really hope you're wrong. The thing is, I hate everything. I don't enjoy any of my classes, I have no passions, no monetizable interests. I figured if I bit the bullet here I'd do myself a favor in the long run. Is it really that bad?
did you hate accounting from square 1 or is it only now you realize?
>>1166254
what are you doing now?
>>1166331
>I figured I'd get a vocational degree (accounting) because I thought I'd get a job and business skills. Now I'm about to drop out because I hate it so much, I want to kill myself every second in class and feel so free whenever I'm on my own time.
Holy shit are you me?
>>1166368
Working minimum wage and I'm much happier and less stressed than when I was in uni, lolz
Yes, I'm actually happier working minimum wage than finishing my "good" degree.
That's how much I fucking hate accounting. Fuck this shit. Fuck it through hell and back.
>>1166365
>did you hate accounting from square 1 or is it only now you realize?
It gets worse as you go along I suppose, but honestly I should've known from my first semester that college isn't for me at this point in my life. I was just a coward and I ignored the obvious signs.
