Is an accounting minor worth it?
I am an incoming junior at a public school and I am considering doing the accounting minor. Honestly, the only reason I think I should do it would be if all else fails and go work in the Big 4/get my CPA, which I really don't want to. If everything fails I'd probably try for grad school or something. I have my sights more set on IB or possibly consulting/tech. But it doesn't require many more classes (5 I think) and I've already taken financial and managerial accounting. Should I focus my courses elsewhere? I do some programming for fun and I am also interested in mathematics, so I don't know if I should take some upper division math or programming classes instead. Or I could just do the normal major. Any thoughts or considerations?
accounting is always helpful, not sure if a minor is worth it, but definitely the extra classes will be nice to have taken
As a hedge to a shitty economy, an accounting minor definitely helps big time. More than that, it does provide benefits to a job in finance (I'm not a banker, but I do work in what would be considered front office finance). Probably less useful for consulting and completely useless for tech (less sure about these two as I did neither) - but the skillset just isn't as important in those cases.
To sum it up, you could do a lot worse than an accounting minor. If your interests are geared towards finance (and you aren't sacrificing anything) an accounting minor is a great idea.
Lastly, as a trailing thought, big4 jobs do suck....but unemployment sucks even more. So there's that.
Lemme know if you have any questions.
Yeah, that was my reasoning too. I thought it'd be an alright backup if things don't work out, and my school is a feeder to the big 4.But I know working at PwC or wherever doing audit sounds bad, low pay, bad hours FWIW. I have other academic interests but I can't say they are very practical, except math, but it could be a GPA killer too.
GPAs, while bullshit for some specific purposes, are very important for others (namely major past resume filters and stuff). Is be wary of taking high level mathmatics if your interests are in IBD. Besides, as diverse_kanga says, it's pretty much irrelevant for IBD.
As far as audit goes, it's a soul draining field where any value add aspect of the job is questionable, but if you do well in accounting, you'll do very well from a monetary perspective. Despite the big4 hate on this board, big4 partners make more than probably 97% of the general populace with senior partners making as much as BB MDs while maintaining some semblance of work life balance in non busy season times. Granted it takes significantly longer to get there, it's also much more stable (I've seen MDs get fired with zero notice in noncrisis times whereas it's almost unheard of for a partner to get fired except in something akin to the financial crisis). So I'm not sure why you want to go into IBD, but if it's for the money, big4 can still be a very rewarding (monetarily) career path.
Accounting is really the language of business, so it's pretty important that you understand it at least at a basic level, not just for IB but basically any job in finance. Programming and higher level math would be useful for quantitative finance, but irrelevant for the majority of IB jobs out there.
Well I'd be lying if I am not attracted to the pay, but I do like finance in general but I can't put a real finger on what I exactly want to do. I like the exit ops and I feel like it is a good way to start a career. I don't think anyone goes into IBD because they are passionate about working 90 hours a week doing pitchbooks and powerpoints.I agree that the Big 4 gets a lot of hate on here, but I think partner is a pretty big reach to commit to a career in accounting. If you do, I'd argue you have more stability, retirement, and less pressure. Originally I wanted to get a math PhD but the opportunity cost isn't worth it and I don't think I am skilled enough in it.I probably should be trying to boost my GPA as much as possible, but at the same time I want some exposure to things I'd normally never learn. Accounting minor seemed like a viable option just because it only requires a few more classes, but if I wanted too, I could drop it and move to straight Econ and do something else with it.
Changing Accounting Major to a Minor?? (Originally Posted: 02/18/2011)
I'm currently a junior at a semi to non-target in Texas. I have a good GPA, good resume, good work experience, and a SA spot lined up with a BB. I just got out of advising and to maintain my Fin/Acct doulbemajor, I'll have to take 18 and 21 hours my senior year of college. This is on top of working. The classes that differentiate the minor form the major are Advanced Accounting, Audit, and RIsks and COntrols (AIS). How big of a difference would it be on the resume to have a double major vs a Major and a minor, assuming I have a good resume otherwise. Would it be a dealbreaker on whether or not I get an interview come FT season or future opportunitites? PLease help me out, iI've been trying to decide whether or not to do this for a while.
No dude don't worry about it
Won't matter man. None of the classes you have to take (except maybe a little of advanced) will have any relevance to banking (you're not doing auditing or internal controls here...), and people reviewing your resume won't notice the difference between a major or minor (finance OR accounting is plenty, having both on there is overkill, but won't hurt you of course).
Agree with the above. Once you have locked down the SA it doesn't matter so much whether or not you're a double major or a major and minor, especially if the one moving to a minor is accounting. The only time this isn't true is if your SA is in oil and gas. If that's the case you're screwed.
So why is oil & gas so different?
I doubt SA will care as to whether or not you have an accounting major versus minor, but why the hell would you suffer through Intermediate I and II just to only have a minor on your resume? Just suck it up and take advanced and audit so you can have the double major. Advanced is not hard at all, and audit sucks but it is only one class.
...because he doesn't want to spend his entire senior year in class or working if he doesn't have to, which he wouldn't if he dropped the accounting major.
Minor in Accounting? (Originally Posted: 05/08/2015)
I just graduated with two degrees in Finance and Business Management. I am 1 class short of completing an accounting minor as well which i can take online over the summer. Is it worth it to get the accounting minor if I already have two degrees? Will It affect my job search at all? Thanks.
Wouldn't hurt you, probably not going to be a huge help either as any finance major should have a good understanding of general accounting. If you don't have a FT position yet then I'd say do it since it's online and it sounds like you don't have anything locked down for the summer.
Take it only if you want to learn more about accounting (don't know why you would want to, though). Minors mean nothing in the context of your job prospects.
Majors arguably don't either.
If you're only one course short of a minor and it's online, which is really convenient, I presume, then you should definitely go for it. If anything, it'll make for an interesting discussion during an interview.
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