Mulligan after Big 4 Tax

As you can see from my username, I am going through a full blown quarter life as I turn 24 next week. Pretty much I don't know what I want, but am completely unsatisfied with where my career is going and have a ton of regret. Not saying starting my career in IB would have been the right choice for me, but my first regret is probably choosing my in state school over a target state school. I might be the only person in America to do that but I guess I wanted to major in accounting and thought like one too and wanted to save my parents 150k. My second regret is majoring in accounting and my 3rd regret is going into A specialty tax. My grand plan was to work for 2 years, pass the CPA, and then go a top 10 law school. I have the first 2 down, but after the boringness and hours of this job, I am really questioning if I want to go to school for 3 years just to be hit with even worse hours the rest of my career. I am confident in my testing abilities and my ability to interview, I just don't know what my next move should be.

I am still considering law school, but this week I started to consider going back for a master of finance. I feel like I could drop a 730 on the GMAT and I need a path reset. I feel like I don't have the work experience to get into a great MBA program regardless of my scores or 3.8 GPA. At this rate, I am just looking for interesting work. I transferred divisions in tax and locations as well. In the process, I had one interview in advisory for financial management and didn't get another interview. I would think I would have to wait until at least next January to ask for a transfer and I don't know if I want to stay a perpetual associate. Should I go back to school now, later, or what jobs should I realistically be looking for?

6 Comments
 

If you can, take a week of vacation. Clear your head and don’t think about work, and when you come back, start focusing on what you want out of your dream job. Once you know vaguely what that is, it’s significantly easier to get onto a path towards it, but taking random leaps isn’t going to get you there.

No one on this forum can tell you what you want to do.

 

Good idea to take a week off.

Also, think about what you'd like to do or what really gets your blood pumping. Maybe it's business-related, maybe it's not.

Would you say you definitely want to stay in business/accounting/finance? Or are you thinking more of a total career switch?

 

So I moved to a smaller market n hopes of finding more reasonable hours. I started to think I could tolerate tax if I could tolerate the hours. Unfortunately the hours aren’t that much better and I don’t see the work getting that much more interesting. I think I could work bad hours if I’m legitimately interested in what I do (I know no work is interesting to start). I also feel unsatisfied with my education as it stands. I was thinking about doing a total career change and going back to school if that change was going no where.

 

That's very relatable. School will certainly give you a good opportunity to reset into a new field. One thing that comes to mind is to consider what field you'd like to go into, which will make picking the degree to pursue (if you want to go back to school), easier. Who knows, maybe you'll decide to go get a non-business degree and pull a 180.

 

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