Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In my view passion is overrated, if you are good at the job and can tolerate it then that is good enough. If that job ( which in this case would be accounting) happens to be your dream job, what you really and truly love then more power to you, if not then hey at least you are getting a decent pay check, making more than minimum wage etc....
Yep most people work jobs solely for a paycheck. The alternative of being homeless and starving makes even the worst job seem good.
I really don't think you can attribute all the overeducated, under employed business majors to a lack of passion. There's no reason to think that students are any less passionate about accounting than they were 50 years ago - but 50 years ago you didn't see these problems of people having degrees but nowhere to work. Granted, I think a lot of this is attributable to businesses basically refusing to train employees anymore from the "ground up" so to speak which now places the financial and time burden of "training" almost solely on the job-seeker. At the same time though I don't see any "Think Twice About that Engineering Degree threads" and while my own experience is obviously just anecdotal from the folks I know with engineering degrees they all have jobs - I know plenty of business majors working at restaurants or as secretaries at staffing agencies and I don't think my Engineering friends were particularly more passionate about their degree than the business folks were (as if this were something that could be readily observed anyways).
I think a lot of degrees aren't what they used to be. Guess when you create a society where everyone has the "right" to go to college a degree ends up not meaning very much...
...but hey, the college graduate now makes as much as your local burger-flipper so we've finally achieved equality - and isn't that what REALLY matters in the end?
Go back and reread what I said, I said nothing about having passion about accounting, I have an accounting firm and it was not my 1st choice. I said pretty clearly that you have to have an aptitude for it, and not mind the work. Very few people love doing accounting and bookkeeping, but too many are doing it specifically because someone else told them too do it, and they are only trying to do it for the money.
Go back and reread what I said, I said nothing about having passion about accounting, I have an accounting firm and it was not my 1st choice. I said pretty clearly that you have to have an aptitude for it, and not mind the work. Very few people love doing accounting and bookkeeping, but too many are doing it specifically because someone else told them too do it, and they are only trying to do it for the money.
Pretty much everyone does work for the money. That doesn't do anything towards explaining why there are so many business school graduates waiting tables these days whereas 50, 60 years ago that would've almost literally been unheard of.
Pretty much everyone does work for the money. That doesn't do anything towards explaining why there are so many business school graduates waiting tables these days whereas 50, 60 years ago that would've almost literally been unheard of.
I did not know we were talking about business degrees as a whole, but it actually does explain why so many are waiting tables. Colleges are turning out more graduates than ever, and business management/marketing is one of those catch all degrees for people who really do not know what they want to be when they grow up.
The problem is that many of them view a degree as a direct line to easy street, they seem to have no idea that it could take years before they get a good job with good pay, and even then the good pay they are expecting is not exactly what they had originally thought it would be.
Accounting also gets some of that, and many of them just decided on accounting for the money. The people jump into it, work tirelessly in college to graduate with a decent GPA and than hate their career. I have interviewed plenty of people who went to school for both types of degrees, and the ones who went to school for accounting only because they thought it would be good money are easy to pick out within a couple of years, they look and act miserable when you start discussing what the job is going to entail. Accounting is a different type of job, especially in the beginning you are a glorified data entry person and most people can fake it at the start and in school, the money also is not that great usually paying around $15-$17 an hour in my area for someone with a bachelors, and a new CPA usually starts at less than $50,000 a year. If you are good at that and have a good attitude proving value to your clients and your company you can move up in salary pretty quickly and expand your job description but you have to prove your value, which is hard to do if accounting does not come somewhat naturally and takes you too long on the data entry parts, or you turn down working extra hours/work when asked, and you hate doing data entry.
This post overall is grossly exaggerated...fear based media is a powerful tool. I see this type of stuff in all college majors discussions. I guess now we should all just curl up and die or work at Wal-Mart. Ridiculous....it's a bad idea to be a lawyer, accountant, doctor, cop, own a business, WHAT THE HELL IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO DO!? Lets start with that Negative Neds, otherwise shut up and get a life.
I
The problem is that many of them view a degree as a direct line to easy street, they seem to have no idea that it could take years before they get a good job with good pay, and even then the good pay they are expecting is not exactly what they had originally thought it would be.
This is the answer. Although I imagine it is the answer for most jobs, I can only speak to the accounting side of things.
When you get out of college expect to get the same wage as someone working at Sears or McDonalds. Maybe higher, but way less than you thought it would be. You'll probably start off as an accounting clerk or A/P data entry type job, an assistant type job at a CPA firm or work for one of the big 4. The latter is like the "boot camp" for accountants. Tons of hours, low pay but potential to be rewarding. For me, I did not take that route. I started in a small local company doing A/P and A/R, moved on to a nationwide company doing general accounting/financial analysis, and then onto a company within the Fortune 15 doing transactional taxes for the entire US. My first job out of college paid $18K in 1995, as a point of reference.
The key is, though, advancement tends to be swift. Everyone knows that nobody wants an entry level job forever and the firm/company knows it is a stepping stone to something else. Do good work and you will be rewarded, like anything in life. You get out what you put in.
You can get a job at any level and move up from there. Get tuition reimbursement, get your bachelors for free and then sit for the CPA. If someone has an associates degree, they have options.
I had a 4.5 year career in finance and obtained my CFA. But after getting the boot from my employer, I had worlds of trouble finding another job in the field. IMHO, the CFA may be the most prestigious title in finance, but it certainly doesn't guarantee you any career success. In fact, when I was applying for low-pay jobs (for which I had no interest in), employers always wondered what I was doing applying for such crappy jobs.
So now I'm seriously considering adding the CPA to my arsenal. If there's one flagrant mistake I made in my career choice, it was selecting a career that I didn't have the personality for. So after taking several personality tests, accounting appears to be a great fit. Besides that, it's the closest thing to finance and the CFA + CPA are probably the two most prestigious titles in business.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
