Is This True About Accounting??

thats like saying taking algebra will not help you understand calculus. OK maybe with a little difficulty you can skip ahead and take more intermediate courses.. but unless you need to graduate ASAP there is no harm in learning the basics first.

Thanks, that is pretty much my logic. I was also thinking about using the Breaking Into Wall Street to learn accounting, they have an Acct 101 type section.

My buddy majored in finance, and we had to take those accounting classes. He ended up working for big4, and says those classes were useless

He was wrong...financial accounting is absolutely essential. If I could think of one class ive taken in college that would be the most important at giving me a good base knowledge for acct/fin it would be financial accounting.

Thank you for all of your input. If I decided to self teach myself the necessary components of financial accounting what would be some good sources, or ways to go go about doing so?

agreed with the above comments - accounting was one of the most useful classes ive taken in college

Didnt mean it like that, meant it from what he learned cause our teachers were shit

Why would you skip the lower level accounting classes to take a higher level one? Financial accounting is very much like math in that it all builds on each other and if you don't have a solid foundation of how an economic event effects the financial accounts you will really struggle in intermediate.

If you are taking accounting courses at school then you first have to take financial accounting then you can take intermediate 1 later on. Its a prerequisite for higher level courses. However, just on your own you can study intermediate. But, Intermediate really is on a different level. There are a lot of 'procedures' in this class which take time to master. Don't expect to know everything about intermediate in a few months.

So will an accounting major be more useful than a finance major?(Think IB/PE) Been hearing mixed responses regarding both.

Or should one major in finance and take only the useful accounting classes?

How about double major with Finance and Accounting. Some places dont let you do that; dont know why.

What about it?

Higher level accounting courses are meant to prepare you for the CPA. Finance is based off of introductory accounting concepts, but they diverge more the higher you go. Still, I don't think you could possibly work in a bank without knowing at least financial accounting.

I should mention that professional audit/accounting bears little semblance to anything in school. Think of the overlap between a CS major and a software engineering job.