Path of Accounting

The career field I chose is finance. In a career of finance there are a number of different tasks I would potentially have to do. Accountants and other jobs in the field of finance have to keep track of money and records of companies. In finance you mainly provide financial services to businesses. It may require one to give advice to executives of businesses on better ways to operate their business. To have a Career in finance it is a must to be good at math and great at dealing with/analyzing numbers and data. If you are not good at math or with numbers then being is good in this career will be nearly impossible because you won’t be able to analyze the data you are presented with, which will probably make everything seem foreign because you lack understanding.

Most importantly, a career in finance requires honesty. Having access to other people’s and other businesses’ money is a serious task to be placed with. That responsibility is not one to be lightly or one that allows the chance for mistakes. My career goal is to be a financial accountant. I have wanted to be an accountant as long as I can remember. I’ve always wanted to be an accountant because I am good at math. To be an accountant my career field would have to be finance and I could choose business and management, but I would definitely have to do finance. Finance and accounting is offered at every university, so I wouldn’t really have finding a school. The job requirement of an accountant is all dealing with finance.

As an accountant, it is your job to provide financial information to the management you work for. To do this, an accountant researches and analyzes data and has to prepare reports for the company. Keeping track of the financial records on the company is also a part of being an accountant. Another point of emphasize is the importance of interning at a bank or business to gain experience in the field of accounting.

I would most likely be an accountant in the states of New York, Ohio, or Wisconsin. I would like to work not too close to Chicago, but not too far away either. According to US News.com the monthly salaries in the states of Wisconsin and Ohio are $4, 052 and $3,812 respectively. In New York the monthly salary is $7,476. The highest salary for an accountant is in New York at $89,720 followed by New Jersey and San Francisco at $87,120 and $86,230 respectively.

Other forms of accountants I am interested in is being a forensic accountant and management accountant. As a forensics accountant it is ones job to analyze and access data to help solve crimes. It also requires you to detect any signs or forms of fraud that could lead to anything. Watching show many crime shows have shed lights on forensic accounting for me, which is why I have become so interested in it. Being a management accountant is much like a financial accountant. I would just work with the managers of businesses or corporations more often and provide them with information to help them make the right decision to benefit their company.

I would just come up with all the strategies to help improve the company than work with the manager to get the right decision made, so my work space would be different. Instead of being at a desk on a computer I would have to make representation of data in charts on boards, computer, poster, and etc. This would also result in me spending time in the meeting rooms with executives and managers than other accountants would. The semester credits I am requires to earn depends on what the college itself requires, although most colleges will require me to have 150 semester credits from a university according to Accounting Coach “CPA requirements”.

After I gain enough credit myself and anyone else striving to become an accountant is required to take the CPA exam and cannot begin working as an accountant until they pass it. The CPA exam is followed by an Ethic Exam and they both really test on if one’s readiness for a career in accounting. After passing these two test which are both advised to take as soon as one can while all the info is still fresh, you can start your career in accounting. An accountant usually work twelve hour shifts in their place of business at an computer analyzing data, consulting with managers, or studying data that is given to them, which can be boring if you don’t enjoy math.

One of the colleges I am interested in attending to become an accountant is The Ohio State University located in Columbus, Ohio. According to Forbes Top Collges.com the GPA requirement for is a 3.6 and the ACT requirement is about a 26 with that being the average. Another of their requirements is for incoming students have to at least have taken two years of a foreign language class, preferably the same language, so that they be fluent in one language instead of mediocre in many.

The cost of tuition and fees at The Ohio State University is $26,726 and when you include books, room and things it all adds up to $44,215. Being such a big school Ohio State accepts 64% of its applicants and 93% of freshman return for their second year. The four year graduation rate is 51% and the six year graduation rate is 80%. Graduation rate for African American students is 73%. My second school is Stanford University which is located in Stanford, California.

In Stanford University pamphlet the average GPA and ACT scores for people accepted into Stanford is a 3.6 and a 31. Tuition is $43,245 and student population is large at 17, 833 with 52% being males and 10% being African Americans. The big fact is Stanford on accepts about 8% of its applicants and of those they accept 98% return after their first year. The four year graduation rate is 80% and the six year graduation rate is 93% which I didn’t know was higher than Ohio State’s because of how tough a school it is. The graduation rate for males is 94% and 92% for African Americans.

The last school I selected is the University of Wisconsin-Madison which is located, exactly where the name of the school says, Madison, Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin and Ohio State is like I said about the job, I would like to attend school not too far from Chicago, but not too close either. Forbes Top Schools.com shows that the total population is 41,946 with 46% of that being males and 3% being African Americans. The cost for tuition is $40,012. The average GPA is a 3.4 and for my desired major it is 3.5 while the average ACT is a 26. 94 of its students come back for their second year, while the transfer rate is 12%. The four year graduation rate is 52% and the six year graduation rate is 80%. The graduation rate for males at the University of Wisconsin is 82% and the graduation rate for African American students is 78%.

My end goal is to become a financial accountant after college. I know attending The Ohio State University will definitely help me achieve this goal because they have one of the better accounting programs in the country. I’ve gotten to visit the school and sit in on an accounting class, so I have first-hand experience of what it’s like. Out of the information and things I learned about all three schools I picked, The Ohio State University is the most appealing to me. Having over 90% graduation rates for males and African Americans is the numbers that really jump out at me, but that doesn’t mean if I go to The Ohio State University that the journey will be easy.

It may be the best fit or my top choice, but there are still obstacles like the size of Ohio State. A school with over 55,000 students will be a big adjustments from anywhere, but I have just have to keep looking ahead to my end goal. The next step I need to take in order to reach my goal is continue to develop my skills not only in math, but also work to improve my ACT score so I can get what I need to be accepted into Ohio State. I already have a lot of skills that I need to pursuit my career like being superb in math, great at analyzing data, and dealing with charts and graphs.

I feel I have great self-discipline which I believe everyone must have before they even think of going to college, but I still need to greatly improve in lots of things. I must continue to work on my social skills because being at college with thousands of college can be even more difficult than it already will and I will work to be better at not procrastinating because at times I may wait for the last moment to do things because it seems easy or I get too confident with my ability to do work quick, so I put it off until the last minute. I need to continue to stay focused and take advantage of the many opportunities I have presented to me. This includes ACT prep, college visits, extra-curricular activities, and any other program offered to me.

Though, my most important thing to do to help me achieve my goal right now it to just simply focus on what I need to do right now in high school because that is what’s most important right now. I can face my care path and continue to work closer to my end goal when I get to that point, but I still have to get to that step and I must finish high school to do it. While researching for this project I realized all the information I’ve had to research is nothing, but beneficial to me and achieving my goals. I’ve learned things about these colleges I didn’t know and learned of what is required of me to get accepted into the colleges of my choosing and what is required of me to strive in the career of my choosing.

The process of doing this paper has helped me to learn of all the things I still need to work on and what I still need to achieve. Before this paper I thought I knew everything of what was required to be an accountant an attend the colleges of my choice, but doing this project has shed light on things I didn’t know and informed me that there are still things I still need to learn more about and continue to work on because I’m not where I need to be yet. There are many obstacles in place that I still must face and overcome before I can reach my end goal of becoming a financial accountant, but doing this project has made the long journey to achieving my goal that I have ahead a lot easier than it would’ve been.