Audit to Finance PhD

Looking for some long term career advice - I’ve worked full time in a smaller office at a big 4 for almost a year (I interned before that). I really like my coworkers and the management in my office is good, based on feedback I am a “high performer”. I have worked on both public and private clients, non-profits included. I have not passed any parts of the CPA because I cannot force myself to study - in fact I dread thinking about it. The more I think about studying for the exam the more I think it would be a waste of time because I don’t want to stay in audit. I hate the fact that in busy season for public clients I have to work 60-65 hours and get paid 10k less than friends who work in industry. On top of this auditing is frankly not interesting and between shit clients and the PCAOB the long term prospect of the “Audit” industry is spiraling the toilet imo. Hence why I want out.

I went to a smaller private college and double majored in Finance and Acc to hit the 150. And finance was always more interesting - I loved presenting pitches for our student managed fund, and portfolio analysis in Factset. Finance has always fascinated me.

To be honest I took my big 4 job because nobody from my schools relatively new finance program can get placement in finance yet. I figured big 4 would be best on my resume.

I feel that I would enjoy a career in finance much more however I am worried that if I leave after 1 yr without my CPA it won’t look good. I also think though that having a CPA won’t help me get into a good finance MBA/PhD program. I also feel having the CPA specifically won’t help me get a callback but rather I would need to leverage my connections.

I could try to switch to credit risk advisory or some other valuation group in my firm - but then the question of having a CPA pops up again.

Looking for thoughts and advice - thanks!