<p>Hi everybody, I’m a transferring student majored in Accountancy and I need some advice from you all.</p>
<p>Because I do not intend to go for the Master degree (due to financial hardship), I am thinking about taking extra courses to make myself more marketable upon graduation. Unfortunately, my university does not offer any good choices of minors (like Computer Science, Finance,…)</p>
<p>The closest thing I can find is a double major in Finance, which requires 18 extra credit hours. If I go for this, I will have to take overload courses, estimated 19 credit hours per semester . (because I can’t afford to stay another year in school.) I’m in very good shape right now with 4.0 GPA with all lower division classes taken care of. (in community college). What refrains me is the thought of those overwhelming upper-division classes will ruin my GPA ruthlessly. Therefore, I wonder if this is a good choice.</p>
<ul>
<li>apply for the Honor program in my college. This means taking Honor courses with extra class work and more writing required. Since I did not see this option being mentioned in those Accounting thread here, I assume it does not really matter to recruiting firm.
The honor program is offered by Barret, the Honor College at Arizona State University by the way. [Barrett</a>, The Honors College](<a href=“http://barretthonors.asu.edu/]Barrett”>http://barretthonors.asu.edu/) Correct me if my assumption is wrong.</li>
</ul>
<p>So which option sounds most reasonable to you? Should I just go for the regular curriculum of Accountancy major and put for time working and participating in those Business/Accounting club or studying for the CPA test? (Yes, I do plan to take the Uniform CPA Exam, but I do NOT plan to get Master degree. My financial position does not permit to dream that far, at least for now.)</p>
<p>I really appreciate your time and advice. Thank you.</p>
<p>In my interviewing experience, employers care about when you will be able to sit for the CPA and not necessarily MAcc vs BS vs BS+minor. I say take whatever you are comfortable with to get to 150 cr hrs.</p>
<p>Probably not the answer you are looking for, but my honest opinion. Enjoy your time at college.</p>
<p>Thanks for the honest advice. I have been browsing this forum for at least 2 months now. And seeing all the post about double major, minor, etc really makes me feel inferior and uncertain about the route ahead. I bet the fear is common: not being able to compete in the job market. :(</p>
<p>So if I focus on reviewing for the CPA exam, when should be the best time to start? The beginning of my senior year or the end? Thanks.</p>
<p>I agree with tdccarpenter that the firms don’t care if you have another minor.
DD recently went thru on campus interviews with big 4 for their summer programs. Two of the interviews somehow were carried into the senior managers giving advice of what kind of extra classes she should take to better prepare herself. Both, from different firms, mentioned classes like communication, public speaking, even theater. Because at the end “it’s the soft skill that set you apart”. She told me a partner gave her the same advice from a different event. None of them ever mentioned anything about double major or another minor. So that’s her experience with public firms. As far as corporation/industrial, don’t know.</p>
<p>Recruiters will always say as long as you are eligible to take the CPA exam. They interview you based on your grades ( so go ahead and take the extra classes and if your GPA suffers cut back) and the fact that you are an accounting major. </p>
<p>With that said, all else being equal, anything that differentiates you is good, whether it’s theatre, toastmasters, a masters…etc. So I’m sure another major/minor/masters does have some influence if they are comparing 2 candidates that are otherwise equal. </p>
<p>Also, strangly enough, a lot of Job ads for experienced hires in industry and non-campus job ads for public accounting, will say Masters preferred. </p>
<p>Personnally, I have not been disappointed in my Masters. You make a lot of good connections to fellow accounting students who are going places and learn relatively useful information. My masters program also had several exclusive (non-undergrad) recruiting events with firms so we could get one-on-one time. AND you’d be suprised at the amount of aid/stipends some of these programs give out if you’re a top student. But by no means, is a Masters required and may not be worth the additional effort/cost for many students.</p>
<p>Is there any reason to also major in finance, or is it common because it’s similar to accounting and people need the hours to sit for the CPA? How would firms react if I were to major in accounting and just fill the rest of my hours with history, philosophy, English, etc?</p>
<p>Husker, I hope I didn’t mislead you or anybody that the firms like to see certain non-accounting classes when considering a candidate. I believe DD was asking the question with the intention of what benefit her the most in her career in the long run, not how to impress the firms. And they answered with that in mind. As far as how the theater was up there, the senior manager explained that class would force you to get out of your comfort zone.</p>
<p>Personally, i don’t think they really care how you fill up your 150.</p>
<p>Thanks for all replies in this thread. Getting advice from another source of opinion is really helpful to me because all the advisors I met seemed very conservative about career discussion. To me, they refrained from giving direction because they either lack of real life knowledge/ experience or are afraid of being responsible for giving a “bad” advice. Even when discussing about major, they usually sound like “choice A is good, but choice B is not bad, and choice C is considerable if you…”</p>
<p>@Whatdidyou: I would love to go to school for another year if my financial position permits me. If only for the purpose of filling up the 150-requirement, I think I will go for the Real Estate minor because it actually gives me some kind of reward and direction of taking extra (most likely) random classes. About GPA, do you know what range is considered excellent? I’ve been taking classes in community college and breezed through all of them so I don’t know how GPA differs in university. I want to know so I can cut back if my GPA is dropping significantly.</p>
<p>@a_mom: Yes, I remember somebody here (taxguy) post a thread about minors like Criminal Justice, CS, and English for Accounting student. Those options are not available at my university unfortunately. For the sake of the CPA Exam, do you know what classes I should take that would help me in the review process? I know the Exam comprises of four parts that cover different subjects. Should I take more finance/law/economic/management classes? I mean classes that would contribute significant knowledge to help me understand the CPA exam material.</p>
<p>I’m not familiar with the contents in the CPA exam. I don’t think I’m qualify to give any suggestion. You’re better off talk to your acct professors or dept chair for advise since they’re the ones most familiar with your school’s curriculum and the topic of each course covers. In DD’s school, they have “Government and non-profit acct” and “Commercial Law” which are not required but recommended for students taking the CPA exam. Do your school acct dept have any professors/lecturers that have CPA license? They’ve been thru the exam and know the curriculum, should be a good resource.</p>
<p>My advisors always leads me to the Master program whenever I mentioned about obtaining CPA license. They insist not to give me any other advice that they believe to be “unsure/uncertain”. Maybe I have to find out more. Personally, I don’t think anyone with a CPA license would go into Education field, which doesn’t pay off very well compared to working for financial firm.</p>
That’s not always true. As a fact, daughter’s school has a couple of adjunct professors teaching certain classes who are CPA and worked in big-4 and/or industry before. Their teaching style can be different with the tenure-track professors since they tend to bring in their own experience/real life examples.</p>
<p>
Because your school offers a master program in accountancy? It’s been my observation that the school with MAcc tend to encourage students to take master program, but the school without MAcc would always encourage students to fulfill 150 within 4 years by overloading while not jeopardize GPA or stay extra semester. Maybe my samples are not big enough that I am wrong.</p>
<p>Yes. They do have a Master program. Even more, they offer a special program called "accounting scholars"which is basically an early Master program admission for undergraduate student. The curriculum of this program is slightly different in the last semester of senior year. This program promises to “prepare for graduate admission, no GMAT required, graduate admission fee waived, fulfill requirement for CPA license”.
I think I will go for the Real estate minor and take some random classes in Excel, quick book, income tax (that are quite helpful later).
My school is well known as a money-hungry multi million business. :(</p>
<p>I hope it’s just me reading too much into the description of “accounting scholars” program. If it fulfills CPA requirement, then does your regular accounting track fulfill the requirement? If yes, it’s all good.
But if it’s not, I can see why your advisors lead you to the MAcc program.
Then you need to find out if you can access those extra classes while in regular track, or those are restricted and only available to the scholars program. If the regular track is not what you expect, can a student take the scholars track but not continue to master program upon getting BS degree?</p>
<p>Key benefits of the Accounting Scholars Program:
Eligibility for eight-week spring internships in the senior year (6 credit hours)
Eligibility for scholarships specifically dedicated to this program, with a minimum award of $2,500
Preferential opportunity for Teaching Assistantships
Early commitment (junior year) of admission to the Masters Program
Masters Program application fee waived
Masters Program matriculation fee waived
Accounting elective (3 credit hours) offered in the senior year
9 credits (internship + accounting elective) apply towards undergrad business electives
Assigned a mentor from the Master’s program to answer questions and offer advice
Lead the community service efforts for the SOA
No GMAT requirement
Fulfill the State of Arizonas education requirements to take the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and to obtain a CPA license</p>
<p>The regular track doesn’t have internship in the curriculum and it can be obtained through Department of Finance (optional). I wondered the same thing like you do and I was told by an advisor that the if I don’t plan to go for Master, I’m strongly discouraged to apply for the Accounting scholar program. It seems to me this program’s purpose is to fulfill all of the requirement for CPA license except the CPA exam. (They explicitly inform me that the program is not part of CPA exam review course.)</p>
<p>About the CPA requirement, I just found out that:
The CPA requirement in AZ right now includes:
-36 semester hours of accounting courses of which 30 semester hours must be upper level
-30 semester hours of related courses</p>
<p>Meanwhile in CA, it includes:
-24 semester units in accounting-related subjects;
-24 semester units in business-related subjects;</p>
<p>I think I will to go to CA to take the Exam. Because all else equal, CA requires fewer accounting classes than AZ does.</p>
<p>Where are you planning to get licensing? If in CA, you might want to know that although you can take the exam after you have 24+24+Bachelor, you need 30-accounting subject, 38-business related, 10-ethics to be licensed starting 1/1/2014</p>
<p>^^^ And you better plan on staying in CA. At least with Illinois, and I’m sure with other states with the increased accounting hour requirements, a CA CPA is only deemed “conditionally substantially equivalent” for reciprocal licensing - no automatic reciprocal license, you must qualify by having your credentials and college credits evaluated under existing rules. (Other conditionally substantially equivalent states are: Colorado, Delaware, New Hampshire and Vermont with Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands deemed “not substantially equivalent”.)</p>
<p>You want to be able to accept that job transfer if you want to - don’t go around what are fast becoming the “standard” requirements.</p>