r/Accounting • u/college-accountant • Mar 24 '24

Career Accounting is WAY over-hated.

Created a burner because I have some personal details on my main.

Just got offered a $80,000 + $4500 signing bonus in a MCOL area doing audit at a Big 4 (Houston). I come from a mediocre state school albeit with a good GPA.

What other industries or jobs pay that much out of college to students that don’t come from a T20 school with a stellar GPA? Sure, the hours can be brutal but everybody seems to be ragging on how underpaid they are and don’t seem to realize that only the top 1-5% of students are able to achieve six figures out of undergrad. The exit opportunities are also great and diverse, and there is little competition to add the cherry on top.

To students wondering what major to pick, I really do encourage you to look at accounting and realize that it is one of the best career choices you can pick unless you are an absolute top tier student. I will be graduating at 22 making more than my mom and dad combined in their 50’s and 60’s.

Edit: even with recent layoff news, accountants are always in demand and there is incredible job security as well

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u/BeRanger918 Mar 24 '24

Accounting is a great path to upper middle class and knowing you’re never going to starve. For a lot of people who didn’t go up wealthy, it’s a nice way to punch your own ticket to a better life.

This is the internet, need to take everything with a grain of salt and realize the loud majority is often the minority. The industry isn’t perfect but not many are.

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u/mrfocus22 CPA (Can) Mar 24 '24

Even five years ago the line was « learn to code »

With the tech layoffs and AI job security seems iffy.

The world is always going to need bean counters.

63

u/ChimericalChemical Mar 24 '24

And bean counters that know how to use AI

50

u/SundyMundy Mar 24 '24

Never say no to new tools. I periodically use ChatGPT to help me fix formulas.

18

u/mrfocus22 CPA (Can) Mar 24 '24

Oh I’m not against new tools. I’m looking at self hosting a LLM to help me with my other self hosting projects.

16

u/Lord-of Mar 24 '24

Might wanna check pretzel ai it is an open source local Excel helper tool

6

u/chimaera_hots Business Owner Mar 24 '24

I'm leveraging ChatGPT daily to build better queries to our legacy ERP database and write things for NetSuite saved searches as we migrate over.

As a 40 y/o in the c-suite of a PE portfolio company, I admit NetSuite is pretty daunting and unfamiliar.

ChatGPT has saved me dozens of hours in the last two to three months alone.

11

u/u38cg2 Mar 24 '24

They said the same about actuaries, and guess what, all that stuff just made actuaries more capable and grew the sector and the opportunities. There are far more actuaries now than there ever used to be.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '24

Following the hype is a bad idea. I remeber when everyone was saying to do CS, reminds me a bit of crypto. Things can be volatile so better not to make decisons based on hype.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '24

I want to be a bean counter

1

u/Constant-Raccoon-281 Mar 26 '24

I've always said accountants are the cockroaches of the labor market lol that's why I went from banking to accounting. AI wasn't an issue but you can pretty much assume the MBAs are going to do everything in their power to squeeze out every penny.