Is accounting worth it?

VectorWega · July 4, 2007, 4:06am

LMAO @ this comment. You are completely clueless to the real world. I’ve worked in the real world. Where I’ve worked (and I believe the same would hold true in Accounting firms) everybody is of reasonable intelligence. Some are more intelligent than other, but there is a MUCH stronger correlation between passion and success than there is between intelligence and success.

As for CEOs, I’ve never met one that wasn’t passionate about their work. If they weren’t passionate, they wouldn’t be a CEO (for long).

LMAO. You have it twisted. I have experienced the real world. You are the one making assumptions about how things work.

california_love8 · July 4, 2007, 11:07am

Any evidence of that besides your so called “real world anecdotes”. True, I don’t have firsthand experience, but I’ve read and viewed quite a bit of superficiality take place in the business world and many of those people succeed. You are basing it supposedly off of one company you work for.

Want an example? The people at Pepsi or Coke once knowingly didn’t pull in their inventory in India even there were pesticides that would definately harm people. Why? Probably because they didn’t want to lose money on wasted products. Look at Nike and almost any other clothing store. Most of them have sweat shops. Why? To save money. Look at investment banking. Why do so many people want it? Because it makes a lot of money. Who gets these prestigious jobs? The best and the brightest. Look at Med and Law school admission. These are depicted by american media as being two of the highest paying careers (whether its true or not), thus, admission is competitive. And who gets these spots? The best and the brightest.

Some people are simply smarter than the others, and no matter how much fun you may have studying for the MCAT or w/e it is, you won’t always be able to beat them because they are simply better. Everyone has seen that person that without studying gets an A while another person who works his butt of gets a B, its a similar thing here. True, studying will be less of a pain, but in the end, you still fail, and they succeed.

The fact of the matter is, if you’re a dumb a**, you are not going to succeed at whatever you do (besides flipping burgers at burger king or something useless like that), and you may not even be where you want to be. True, you may be happy in your own way, which is important as well, but in the world of business where the only thing that matters is the fastest way to make a buck, the people will naturally be superficial as well.

I truely question your real world experience when someone who should be around what, around 22 - mid-twenties given that you have been working uses stuff like LMAO that I should be saying given I’m a high schooler. Your only arguments were you claiming you have real world experience and that I’m clueless. Literally, thats all I read from your post, so truely, I’m questioning just how qualified someone who can’t back up his statements with concrete facts is to make such statements.

btw, bls.gov agrees with me that accountants dont make THAT much money:

<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos001.htm#earnings[/url]”>http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos001.htm#earnings</a>

southpasdena · July 4, 2007, 1:57pm

It is rather painful -literally - to read your last post cali love. You have a ■■■■■■■■ point of view that i do not understand. You don’t seem like you are even willing to be convinced, so i will leave that be.

Any simple minded person can go on to craigslist, monster, etc and look at accounting jobs. Current jobs in private industry for senior accountant upwards assistant controller and cost accountant with 3-5 years of previous experience can pull between 65-120k. That is 3-5 years out of college in which time you should have some useful experience and your CPA so that you can apply for these jobs. That would put the usual college graduate at 25-27( 23-28 we can assume for states requiring 150hrs). That money is far from bad. Moving on to jobs looking for 5-10 years of experience. You can see a price range of 90k on up, with the max that i have seen being around 160k without bonus (and some without the included company shares). That would put someone between the ages of 27 and 32.

Although i don’t know if i can get into the big 4, i am at least guaranteed a job at GT because the recruiter for my school is a friend of my girlfriends cousin who is a audit manager in the same office. I would know whether i have an offer or not before he even comes to campus for recruitment. In southern cali, that would put me around 50k. My gf, mind you we stay together, would be making near the same as a nurse. That puts two brand spanking new college graduates at roughly 100k at 22 and 23 respectively. You have to think about the big picture. As long as i do ok and she gets her masters in nursing or an MBA so she can move on to some management positions, eventually breaking 200k would be a rather reasonable task before we even hit 32/33

california_love8 · July 4, 2007, 2:44pm

just as you may think my P.O.V is ■■■■■■■■ and that I’m stubborn, I see the same way for all you people, so it works both ways. I’m done trying to argue because as we have both established, no one is going to change their minds. Call me immature or what have you, but I still have shown real world examples of how people who are smart and have connections succeed, and passion can only carry you so far. I know Wega will try and rebuttle, but honestly I don’t care that much. I have my beliefs, and who knows? Maybe you guys are all right, and I will only figure this out when it’s too late.

How about we forget our petty differences on this topic, and go back to answering the OP’s question of which we have all high jacked shall we?

So I guess I stand corrected that accountants don’t make money, but south, you probably go to an ivy league school where you get amazing jobs just based on your school’s brand name. What about us average people that can’t necessarily do that?

TheMK99 · July 4, 2007, 4:45pm

Passion can carry you the entire way. I will use an example from athletics(which shares a lot with business) - check Steve Nash.

Some random skinny 6’1 Canadian kid wanted to get in the NBA. No college wanted him. Everyone doubted him. No one took him seriously. His passion for basketball led him to work so hard that he carried Santa Clara in the NCAA for a while, made the NBA, and eventually became MVP twice(and could arguably have been MVP twice.)

Lets move on to business.

Take a look at Bill Gates. He was some kid who decided that his knowledge of technology could change the future. And it ultimately did, although his original vision was incorrect. Bill Gates didn’t have any “Wall Street connections” or any other BS like that. He had a passion for technology and he made big things happen.

Same thing with co-founders of Google. They’re passion for improving searching on the internet is what led them to great success. They started off doing it for some academic research, not thinking of the multi-billion dollar company that awaited them. They’re passion for something as simple as search engine optimization led them to great material success.

California_love your world is greatly twisted. You think connections is all that is needed for success. While connections GREATLY help, when you look at the worlds most successful people, they did great work and they were really passionate about whatever they did.

You have little/no real word experience if you think connections alone can help you succeed at a job. When it’s crunch time at any stressful job, Uncle Larry can’t save you.

california_love8 · July 4, 2007, 5:07pm

lol as I said I refuse to debate it any further, but all I’ll say is that if you are going to take random, one in 100 thousand type people (hell maybe even way less) and claim that it applies to everyone, have fun with that. There are millions of kids that play basketball all day, but still don’t make it big despite the passion they have.

But as I said, I refuse to debate this further, so whatever.

VectorWega · July 4, 2007, 5:49pm

You continue to go off on these tangents that have nothing to do with refuting the point that i made.

The guys may be the “best” but they aren’t necessarily the brightest. I think that is where you are missing the point. Intelligence MAY be the most important quality of a rocket scientist, but in business there are many more important qualities and skills. It’s very hard to quantify someone’s passion for something (especially if they have never done it before), but it’s a bit easier to quantify someone’s work ethic (based on grades etc) and often times work ethic and passion go hand in hand. Although, investment banks will generally try to figure out a candidates motives which can influence the final decision.

Yes, I remember those days. They were called HS. You obviously haven’t attended college.

Exactly. So, if you are a dumbass, you won’t have an accounting degree and thus you will not be competing for a position. While intelligence among applicants varies, these people are not dumbasses (and from what I’ve seen in other business disciplines, the ones that you may think are dumb, may be some of the best in their fields).

I’m old enough to have retired at the age of 28 with no need to ever work another day of my life. I think I have a pretty decent understanding of how to be successful in business.

california_love8 · July 4, 2007, 6:11pm

that was perfectly relevant to my point, which was that people at the top of the corporate world are pretty superficial and want to make a cheap buck.

there are plenty of dumbasses that get accounting degrees (I’ve met a few of them), and compared to I-banking, the top lawyers and docs, engineers, they aren’t that smart. There are exceptions as always, but I go for majority, which is something you still fail to recognize.

I would ask you to explain why its any different, afterall, don’t the people who know the material best, smarter, and don’t they succeed? But again, I am done debating this.

Okay, you’re again a minority in that what you’ve accomplished is far beyond what most people can expect. There is no one path to success, and I’m sure there are plenty of people like you that reached your position, and plenty like me that have reached success, so thinking that your ideology is the only way to go is pretty elitist if you ask me.

who told you that? You can care less about something besides the reward and still do well in it. For example, I could care less about philosophy, but because I worked hard, and was smart enough to figure out what the teacher wanted, I got an A.

But it seems as though you have trouble reading so I’ll say it again: I’m done trying to convince you guys about my viewpoint and don’t care about advocating my reasoning anymore since I see it going nowhere. So lets go back to answering other questions because we are way off topic now.

TheMK99 · July 4, 2007, 8:47pm

california_love is right. he’s too thick to use logic on, give up everyone.

UriA702 · July 4, 2007, 8:51pm

VectorWega - I beg to differ. However, as much as I’d hate to agree with california_love8 - he makes one valid point - intelligence has plenty to do with how well you do in school. A student with a iq of 160 is not going to have a difficult time getting straight A’s studying account. A student with an iq of 100 will have plenty difficulty.
I’m not implying anything, I’m just putting the point out there that intelligence has plenty to do with how far your career goes.

Don’t get me wrong, employers do not by any means look single handedly at grades and test scores but, a student will all the passion in the world and a 2.0 will not anywhere near the salary a person with a 3.8 with not as much passion would.

UriA702 · July 4, 2007, 8:54pm

california_love8 - you are a complete idiot.
As I wrote in your last post, If you are good at something you will make money. Not only selfish, greedy slobs make big salaries. Plenty of people are paid top dollar due to work ethic. Grades and school name will affect your starting salary, but career progression will not go anywhere, unless you are dedicated and work hard.

VectorWega · July 4, 2007, 11:07pm

I never denied that fact.

And yet, Californialove was indicating that one could get As without studying. i wasn’t an accounting major so perhaps this is possible. Not likely.

So you also equate intelligence with GPA?!? I believe a 3.8 is a much greater reflection of work ethic than intelligence. If a person has a passion for accounting and still gets a 2.0, I would question whether the student should be riding the short bus to school.

Regardless, we were mainly talking about career success (not school success…and no, I don’t believe the too are linked as closely as you do).

Intelligence is certainly helpful, but I will once again re-emphasize that they are many qualities/skills that are more important in the business world: ie work ethic, people skills, negotiation skills, ass kissing, innovativeness, organizational skills, business knowledge, ability to handle risk etc etc etc. I don’t know how many successful business execs and entrepreneurs you know, but what seperates them from the everyone else is generally not intelligence.

UriA702 · July 5, 2007, 12:32am

So, according to you, it is impossible to obtain a c average while working your butt off? For some people that is an unfortunate reality.
Equate intelligence with gpa? OF COURSE, I know plenty of very bright students who have 3.5 and above gpas with minimal work, Studying only a few hours for finals. While others cram 30+ hours for a final and still end up with 20 points less than the person who studied a mere 3 hrs. some people are better students than others.
work ethic, people skills, negotiation skills, ass kissing, innovativeness, organizational skills, business knowledge, ability to handle risk etc etc etc. do play the majority of the part, but to say that intelligence has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to perform well in a work environment is completely absurd. Someone with an iq of 90 who can not figure anything out will by no means be able to outperform their 120 iq counterpart no matter how much passion he has. It will take the brighter person far less work to look just as impressive as a dumb person who is working their butt off. Performance gets you very far in a corporate environment, and intelligence has at least something to do with the workload a person can handle.

california_love8 · July 5, 2007, 11:34am

lol *** UriA?? You call me a complete idiot and then agree with me and are now debating with Wega?? Wow, if I’m such a dumb@$$ then what does that make you LOL

VectorWega · July 5, 2007, 11:52am

I actually find it very hard to believe. That being said, I know many highly successful people that had 2.0 GPAs (as I have posted about several times on here so no need to rehash that topic).

Sounds like a pretty easy major. Regardless though, when you are in a work environment, there are plenty of opportunities to take the easy way and not work. In some jobs, people can get by with doing 10 hours of actual work a week. If your friends skated through school like that, they are likely to repeat that in the workforce and will not be that successful. Those with a passion for what they do live, drink, and breathe their work. While much of one’s time at work is spent in discussions about off topic subjects like sports, “american idol”, and why am I not getting paid enough etc, the people who have a passion for their work talk about work. I’m not saying passion is all you need, but unless you are a robot, you will not be truly successful without it.

What is more absurd is that you continue to argue against something that I never stated. It must make you feel like your argument is more valid.

Then how did the person with the IQ of 90 land the same job as the person with the IQ of 120? BTW, I totally disagree. Some of the most intelligent people I know are software developers. However, few of them have any chance at a management position much less a director or CIO position. Their “less intelligent” counterparts frequently move past them up the ranks due to a variety of reasons (people skills, communication skills, being able to seal the deal, being able to get out of comfort zone, etc).

UriA702 · July 5, 2007, 12:47pm

your point is in reference to the exception not the majority. As a matter of fact, I can personally vouch for friends who are pretty intelligent and excel in their fields due to intelligence and creativity.
Yes, Intelligence has plenty to do with GPA. A student who is a quick learner can read over a chapter in a text book once and understand just as much as a fellow student who reads the same chapter 3-4 times. Less work does not necessarily mean less work ethic. Even with big firms the employee who can get the work done quickly and efficently and learn new skills from his surroundings is most likely to be promoted. Some random idiot may put in double the hours you do yet, be far less productive.
This however, Is limited to the field you are entering, Not every career in the world has to do with “people skills.”
I am, by no means wholeheartedly disagreeing with you, however, I have spent a few years in the sales/marketing industry. I have found that the smarter of the bunch will typically move up the ranks pretty quickly with less effort than someone who takes longer to learn the technical junk behind whats going on.
Keep in mind, Linguistics plays a big role. primarily, companies prefer employees with a vast vocabulary and grammar skills, The more intelligent is usually the one who lands that gig.
In a room where all are equally as bright, with no diversity between backgrounds and education - Sure, it comes down to the effort put in. If employers didnt want intelligent students they would not be recruiting at MIT and other top schools - the students are typically brighter. A dumb person would have a difficult time doing MIT level academics and no matter how much effort put it would not be able to keep up with the work.

UriA702 · July 5, 2007, 12:49pm

california_love8 im not agreeing with you. It is highly unlikely to get an a in any college without studying, I am suggesting that for some students a paper with an a on it might take 2 hours to complete with some students may require 2 hours per page to achieve the same grade.

Dawgie · July 5, 2007, 12:58pm

Uri, you have a point. But a certain amount of work ethic is necassary to get a 3.7+ no matter the intelligence level.

VectorWega · July 5, 2007, 2:05pm

And vice versa. A certain level of intelligence is necessary also. However, I still believe that work ethic is more important in receiving the high grades. I recall one kid that had a 4.0 throughout college (MIS) and graduated at the age of 20. Some people “thought” he was extremely smart, but those of us that knew him well, knew it had a lot more to do with his study habits. IE, immediately after finishing a test, he would begin studying for the next test.

Obviously, how much one can coast depends on the difficulty of the curriculum.

Given that you have a sales background, I’m surprised that you think intelligence is so important. My brother is a salesman and made 6 figures his first year out of college. He is by no means smart. Hell, it took him 6 years to graduate college. However, he’s a great salesman and he’s great with people. I know some of the top salesman for EDS, and based on what I know of them, I’d say that intelligence is less important in sales than many other areas of business.

hinmanCEO · July 5, 2007, 3:05pm

accounting is a joke compared to engineering. as someone who double majors in engineering and business, my business classes boosts my GPA like no other. Accounting is very tedious and VERY IMPORTANT to businesses. If you want to provide for your family, go ahead!

Is accounting worth it?

CONNECT WITH US