starting accountancy need help

madnirvana

I want to do accountancy in DCU but iv never studied it before..
Can i know is it easy or not?
i only want to do it because of the Money..

Climber

The money is good, that's a fact.

But remember you have to at least find it interesting in order to stick it out till the end. After your degree you'l have to go on and do professional exams with ACA, ACCA, CIMA etc.

These are very hard and require an awful lot of will power to complete. No-body gets terribly excited from doing accountancy but if you really don;t like it then it makes studying that bit harder

jpmac70

i am looking to change career, i know i want to do accountancy but apparently there are many different aspects to it, can anyone offer any more info

ie-practising accountant
fund accountant etc

bit of a vague one here but i am confused

Don't do it just 'for the money'

You about 7 years from earning decent money (3 year degree plus 3-4 year training contract), and when the serious earning starts, so does the serious hours!

Running Bing

madnirvana wrote: »

I want to do accountancy in DCU but iv never studied it before..
Can i know is it easy or not?
i only want to do it because of the Money..

Doing accountancy in college has little bearing on becoming an accountant after college.


I really dont think you would be any more desirable after doing an acc. degree than if you did a general business, economics or engineering degree. And I would argue you would not be significantly better prepared either.


To answer your question about the difficulty yes it is a hard subject. Some people get it straight away(but you still need to put in the work) some people never get it and truly hate it.


The money is good but there are other jobs that pay well too. Personally from reading your post I think you would be mental to do an accoutnancy degree. Do a general business degree, take some accounting subjects, if you like it great you can go on. If you dont you can specialise in something else and take a different route.


Have to say though your attitude is **** though. You'll never be successful with an attitude like that.

Cantoris

Success of course is a relative thing. The 9 to 5 civil servant earning an ok wedge might consider himself successful because he gets home to his family at 6pm and tucks his kids into bed while the poor divil next door has loads of lolly but doesn't know his kids. But that's for another thread. The OP is interested in doing accountancy for the money. Grand, if you are willing to put your head down and do the same thing for ten years, you make good money. But if you care about what you do for nearly half your day but don't know exactly what you want to do, then do a general course. If you like business then do a general business course and work hard and follow up with accountancy, either through a practice (ACA) or a business (ACCA/CIMA). Yu obviously have a home mapped out for all the money you want to earn, but consider how boring the rest of the day might be if you only do it for the money!!

estar

madnirvana wrote: »

I want to do accountancy in DCU but iv never studied it before..
Can i know is it easy or not?
i only want to do it because of the Money..

why dont you do a course thats less specific to accountancy
but with an accounting element. after all courses you are going
to have to do some exams and work to get your exams in a firm
anyway so perhaps explore the options of doing a BCOMM
or a degree that offers differnet subject choices as well as
accountancy

that degree in accountancy and finance in DCU is meant to
be great, one of the best in the country. but what happens if
you decide you dont like accountancy ? then you are going to
be stuck there. you can always do a year long conversion
course after a degree to speed up the exam sitting process.

dont just pick a career because of the money. life is long.
pick something that fires you up and makes you go - god
i really like this.

that said, accountacy might not be easy, but if you work
hard you get the marks, its fairly logical. the exams are
easier than actuarial, and ok to pass. and the job security
is fairly good.

explore your options. my boss did BESS in trinity - there is
also a business and legal degree in UCD - both offer a dual
career path into either law/ social studies or accountancy
and provide you with a rounded degree also.

and you can still apply to the top ten firms and get in
after them.

sheena1985

Hi,

I presume you aren't taking accounting for the Leaving Cert? If you have no experience of accounting I wouldnt think it wise to go straight into a specialised degree like the DCU course.

Accounting was my best subject in school and I really liked it, however, I still decided to go for a general business degree, as at 18 I thought I might be limiting my options in the future to go for a specialist degree. Many students love accounting in school, and end up hating it in college.

After 2 years of a broad range of business subjects, I decided to specialise in accounting and finance for final two years, with a 6 month work placement in KPMG. I think this was a better option, I still end up with prof 2 accounting exemptions, but have a broader business education, having studied economics, marketing, management etc as well.

When choosing a course, I would recommend examining your options carefully. I have heard DCU do a great accountancy and finance degree, but there Business degree has a work placement option, which I think gives you an enormous advantage when applying for a job.

I went for DIT business and management, its similiar to the DCU commerce degree. BComm in UCD is good, but with only 3 years study and no work experience I dont think it is as good as DCU or DIT. Bess in Trinity seems to have more emphasis on theory rather than the practical side of things, and again, has no work experience.

Definitely don't go for accounting because of the money! The starting wage in large accountancy firms is pretty low (approx €24,000). Although the money improves significantly, you will have to work and study for three years before you qualify, its certainly not easy money!

Finally, as other people have mentioned, accountancy is easy for some people, but the stuff of nightmares for others. If you are good at the business statistics side of maths, then you should find it ok.

Hope this helps