Any accountants out there switched careers?
I’m an accounting major and I have my doubts about continuing in the field- main my concern is that I will get bored looking over other people’s calculations and constantly filing away various transactions into various categories and spreadsheets.
I’d like to hear from accountants who left the field, if there are any: why did you leave? Are my perceptions correct? Or is there considerable variation in the work?
I was an accounting major until I took cost accounting, which made me think, This just isn’t for me. I switch my major to finance (because it would require the fewest extra classes). The irony is that after working for 10 years in finance (budgeting, forecasting, analysis), I ended up back in accounting (through a series of promotions and shifting job responsibilities). And I actually found that I liked accounting (at least in the corporate environment in which I found myself). Keep in mind that there are lots of types of accounting careers (although you’ll have to go the public accounting-audit route first if you want to get a CPA).
My advice to you is this: Try taking some non-accounting business courses (marketing, finance, economics). See if any of them appeal enough to you to switch your major. You might prefer finance to accounting because it is a "bigger picture" discipline. You’ll find yourself rounding to thousands or millions, while accountants often have to tie out things to the penny.
Good luck!
Posted under Accountant Careers
Sounds as if you should. I went back to school, switched from accounting to chemistry. Very happy I did. Just retired after 35 years as a chemist.
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My girfriend did accounting, then audit, then went finance… she loves her finance job… she left the job because the people she worked with were total bores and they had a personality of a brick.
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Well you can sit in a cubicle and do journal entries, or you can be the type of accountant who helps a business flourish and become even more sucessful. Your choice.
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I was an accounting major until I took cost accounting, which made me think, This just isn’t for me. I switch my major to finance (because it would require the fewest extra classes). The irony is that after working for 10 years in finance (budgeting, forecasting, analysis), I ended up back in accounting (through a series of promotions and shifting job responsibilities). And I actually found that I liked accounting (at least in the corporate environment in which I found myself). Keep in mind that there are lots of types of accounting careers (although you’ll have to go the public accounting-audit route first if you want to get a CPA).
My advice to you is this: Try taking some non-accounting business courses (marketing, finance, economics). See if any of them appeal enough to you to switch your major. You might prefer finance to accounting because it is a "bigger picture" discipline. You’ll find yourself rounding to thousands or millions, while accountants often have to tie out things to the penny.
Good luck!
References :