Professional Diploma in Accounting

just-joe

Hey there,

I posted the same thing on the DCU forum but didn't really get a reply:

Just wondering if anyone has done/knows anything about the Proffesional Diploma in Accounting? I've been offered a job in the tax department with Deloitte conditional on doing this first. Is it interesting/hard? And how would it be for someone with a non-accounting background? (I study maths at the moment).

Thanks in advance!

ofjames

i know several people who did the pda in dcu. mostly coming from a business background but also from law, science and hospitality management and they're all qualified by this stage. so i guess from my experience its a pretty good starting point for a career in accounting

couple of points that might be of interest:

any accounting degree course worth its salt gives you the same full CAP 1 exemption that the pda course gives you so doing the pda serves no purpose for accounting graduates. accounting graduates that go the post-grad route will do a masters to get exempt from CAP 2 like i did, for example

because of this its very unlikely that any of the students on the pda will have any great accounting background to speak of (aside from maybe leaving cert accounting or a couple of modules from their degree perhaps) so i wouldnt be intimidated by your lack of one. if your bright enough to do be studying maths at a university level you should be well able to cope with the material with a bit of effort.

effectively the pda is a 1 year conversion diploma that turns your degree in whatever other domain into an accounting degree. although it assumes no prior accounting knowledge, you basically have to cover the same fundamentals (financial accounting, management accounting & tax etc...) in 12 months that most accounting degree's take at least 3 years to work through. although it must be said that accounting degree's could easily cover the same material in a lot less than 3 years if they cut out the bull$hit modules and 12hr weeks, having to cover the material in just 1 year obviously means the pda will be quite an intensive course. as far as i know they start off with the very basics but advance in difficulty fairly quickly so i reckon making the effort to get to grips with the basic concepts right at the start will make for an easier ride.

its basically a crash course in accounting so i cant imagine you'll find it overly interesting, and there will probably be a good deal of ongoing work/assignments, but the material is not overly difficult once you get your head around the main concepts.

another advantage of doing the pda is it means you'll have a shorter training contract (3 years as opposed to 3.5 years) which is a very good thing in my opinion.

given that you've been offered a tax job, it will also allow you do the part 2 tax exam in the last year of your contract. if you didnt do the pda and had an ICAI exam to do in each year of your contract then its very unlikely you'd fit in any tax exams. so if you really want to go the taxation route the pda is the only option really

just-joe

Thanks ofjames, thats alot of good info! I think it would be a good stepping stone to career in accountancy, and it is a great opportunity as it would be paid for... Now I'm just left wondering whether accountancy is the thing for me...

Decisions...