<p>Do you usually need to be a CPA to work at a big-time firm like Goldman Sachs etc.?</p>
<p>Let me ask you a question. CPA=Certified Public Accountant. Is Goldman Sachs an accounting firm?</p>
<p>No, but they do employ many accountants.</p>
<p>No. I know someone who works at Ernest & Young, who is an accounting major but not a CPA.</p>
<p>Do you want to be an internal auditor or something? If so, you might want the CPA. For front-office IB positions, the answer is a definite no.</p>
<p>You certainly don’t need a CPA to get into a big 4 accounting firm but you will want if you want to make partner you will definitly need one. i’d recommend getting one as soon as you can.</p>
<p>As for Goldman Sachs…I’m not sure how that would be considered a big time firm to an accountant.</p>
<p>“You certainly don’t need a CPA to get into a big 4 accounting firm but you will want if you want to make partner you will definitly need one. i’d recommend getting one as soon as you can.”</p>
<p>Previously, the policy at most of the Big 4 was that your certification was that your certification was required to make Manager. Slowly, the firms are now requiring that you to have it to make Senior (which will generally be your 3rd year rather than 2nd due to AS5) and are providing nice bonuses to those who pass earlier. It’s going to be more and more commonplace for recent graduates to have passed the exam prior to beginning full-time or, at least, during their first year.</p>
<p>To answer the OP, we really need more information. Yes, companies like Goldman Sachs hire private accountants, but there are a wide variety of positions. For a bookkeepers, you certainly do not need your CPA, but for financial reporting/tax management positions (i.e. Director of Financial Reporting, Controller, etc.), it’s going to be expected (unless there are compensating factors).</p>
<p>CPA isn’t that hard to get anyway. My friend told me the last part of CPA (his strategy was to take one part at a time) he took couple weeks ago was fairly easy. He went to a tier-3 school and he was a B student at that school. One of the simulation problems (there were two; others are MCs) was a FIFO, LIFO, weighted average of a basic inventory problem–you probably remember doing it in your first accounting course!! He started studying after Memorial Day Weekend and given the difficulty of the test, he thought he over-studied.</p>
<p>Sam, I’m pretty sure that the CPA exam is a lot harder than you described.</p>
<p>My friend’s experience tells me CPA is not that hard; you have to study of course; but nothing is gonna be over your head conceptually. For example, one part of it is taxation. Part of that was asking you to remember how many % was taxed and what can be deducted and what not. Are you telling me that’s a difficult concept? In fact, according to my friend, a lot of stuff are just memorization (and VERY BORING) for the first 3 parts (CPA has 4 parts). If you are in top-50 school, you have enough brain power or potential to pass. It’s just a matter of discipline (memorizing things takes studying time). It’s nothing like professional engineering exam (you have to have math aptitude) and definitely way way easier than actuarial exam (high IQ required). Even my cousin thought it might not be hard as she learned one of her former coworkers just got it and she said that coworker often made mistakes.</p>
<p>I’m glad to hear that your friend didn’t have too much trouble with the exam, but I think you’re making some rather rash generalizations.</p>
<p>Is the CPA exam incredibly hard and unpassable? No. Is it challenging? Certainly. It doesn’t make much sense to compare it to the actuarial exams, IQ tests or other professional exams–they are for different purposes and are taken by people at very different stages in their careers.</p>
<p>The exam is NOT strictly memorization. There is a LOT to memorize, but most exam questions are not right out of the book definitions. The Regulation section, for instance, is not just, as you say, questions on deductions and tax calculations (in fact, I don’t believe there are any questions on actual tax rates). The questions tend to be more analytical in nature. Yes, you will probably get a question or two on whether or not a person can include charitable donations on their Schedule C, but more often your questions will ask you to interpret whether or not the UCC applies to a given situation or analyze how a particular situation would be treated under the tax code. Most of the questions are not straight forward–they are usually quite tricky.</p>
<p>In reference to your friend’s experience (also mentioned in <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=372926[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=372926</a> ), just because the simulations were basic doesn’t mean the rest of the exam was a cakewalk. Thinking the questions are easy is also NOT a good sign–the exam is designed to get harder as you answer more questions correctly. If you’re getting easy questions, it may be because you’re not doing very well (which may or may not be the case in your friend’s situation–I’m assuming he doesn’t actually have his score back yet).</p>
<p>You also note that your friend has 7 years accounting experience–don’t you think that would play a role in whether or not he felt the exam was easy? You also repeatedly mention that he went to a 3rd tier school, as if that’s a definitive indicator that he would not be capable of passing a challenging test (just as being someone that “often makes mistakes”).</p>
<p>I’m certainly not going to say that the exam covers the most complex material possible (it pales in comparison to some of the accounting and auditing situations I’ve dealt with on the job), but it does cover a WIDE variety of topics, many of which are complex and require significant effort to understand and apply. I also think you underestimate just how much determination it takes to sit and learn all of this material (especially when you’re working, as most people are when they take the exam)–you can have all the “brain power” you want, but study fatigue sets in rather quickly and it takes a lot to continue on (and I know a LOT of my co-workers are extremely intelligent–almost all of them having gone to first and second-tier schools–but have failed portions of the exam). </p>
<p>I think it shows a real lack of tact to go around telling others that something is “so easy” when you clearly don’t have a great understanding of what’s entailed in the undertaking (and your posts clearly indicate that you aren’t familiar with what’s actaully tested on the exam). I’d also like to know what YOU’VE accomplished in your career that puts you in a position to be able to downplay what is a significant accomplishment.</p>
<p>Keep in mind this is coming from someone who has actually taken and passed the exam.</p>
<p>All i know are that actuarial exams are supposedly harder…lol, just note of thought…</p>
<p>I never said the exam doesn’t require great determination. I also never said it’s “so easy”. You came up with that conclusion. All I was saying is CPA is not very difficult conceptually. My point is to encourage people to take on the challenge, instead of running away from it. As for comparison with CFA or acturial exam, my judgement was based on what I read on other professional finance/actuary board. Of course I am not familiar with CPA but I can make a reasonable guess by research and observation. </p>
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<p>Now I see that you were taking what I wrote too personally. My point was to encourage people not to be intimidated by CPA. It looks to me the OP doesn’t want to deal with CPA if he/she doesn’t have to. But regardless what the answer to the original question is, CPA is a good thing to have. Sorry, if you took my intention as “downplaying” YOUR accomplishment. As for what I’ve accomplished, let’s just say I don’t broadcast what I got like you do here.</p>
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<p>Based on what you’ve written it seems as if you’ve actually studied for and have experience with the exam. If you haven’t, I’d shut my flap if I were you, unless of course you don’t mind coming off as some kind of idiot.</p>
<p>Well, I did have experience with PE and actuarial exam (studying not too hard yet for the 1st one in Nov–calculus based probability) – I am switching from engineering to actuary. My friend that passed 3 sections of CPA saw few pages of my actuarial study guide and said, “wow, that looks very complicated!”.</p>
<p>NO NO NO…boy you sure are slow. Of course I’m talking about the fact that you have NO experience with THE CPA EXAM, not the actuarial exam. Gee wiz…</p>
<p>Well, my friend thought the acturial exam (that’s just the 1st exam that people take just to get into the profession; there are 8 more that are more complex) was impossible to him while he’s capable of passing CPA. I guess I shouldn’t take that as a sign so literally that CPA is easier. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>While I don’t doubt that the actuarial exam is difficult as well (it’s widely known as an extremely difficult exam), I’m not foolish enough to claim, first hand, that it’s easier or more difficult or the same in difficulty as the CPA exam when I HAVEN’T ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED IT to be able to compare. It would be foolish of me to ask you to wise up as it seems to me that you’re really incapable of doing so.</p>
<p>You don’t need to personally experience everything to be 100% positive. I’m positive 100% that girls in Argentina are better looking than the ones in Cambodia. </p>
<p>Try to refute that.</p>
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<p>Refute what?? This your attempt to be argumentative? You’re joking right?? What does that have to do with what we’re talking about? One’s taste in women has absolutely nothing to do with what we’re discussing here. </p>
<p>You really need to come up with something better than that. On second thought, forget about it. If this is all you can come up with on your first crack at it, then I’m really not looking forward to what you have next. Yeah, forget about it…</p>