Accounting: The Best Business Degree To Get ?
Q: Accounting isn't a perfect field to work in. Ron Todd is correct when
he says that accounting hasn't been a hot field for quite a few years.
But I still believe that if someone goes to college, and wants to
major in business, then accounting is still by far the best of the
business programs to major in.
If you had a child that wanted to major in business, but was unsure of
what specific business degree to get, what would you tell them if they
asked for your advice ?
Two of the most worthless business degrees as far as I'm concerned are
management and marketing. Of all the business degrees, I've known more
management and marketing majors who are unable to find work than in
any other business program.
A marketing degree ? What the hell will that get you ?
A:I would tend to agree in avoiding the accounting profession. While the
subject matter may be interesting and challenging, most accountants are
vastly underpaid for their contribution to the economy and to firms.
However, if possible, I would suggest a double major in management (say
accounting and marketing). This opens up greater opportunities and provides
for a broader study of management.
The growth area of accounting appears to relate to strategy development, but
this requires a less mechanistic approach to learning and thinking than is
the current norm. Also, public policy reform largely drives accounting
demand. Look to the reform pipeline for signals on future demand growth.
As a former student of the college with the 2nd oldest business degree in
the world (Haas @ UC Berkeley), I had cause to investigate such matters. The
credibility of these programs was hard earned (although it appears the
battle still has some fight left). The gradual reduction in speculative
practices and guesswork in exchange for a more 'scientific' approach to
business has been largely behind the greater strengths and managed
complexity of the contemporary economic and business environment.
Recall that lawyers, too, had to fight for academic credibility not so long
ago. The profession was previously taught as a trade, with an apprentice
learning first hand from a seasoned professional and spending no time at a
university. Imagine trying to train lawyers that way today! Business is not
so different. Complex problems require complex solutions that generally
require specialized knowledge of the issues underlying these problems. It
may even be the case that much of the US Business School system still
suffers from a *lack* of specialization (e.g. a Business Administration
major at Haas spends little more than 3 semesters actually studying business
courses, with the remainder of the 4 year degree spent studying non-business
courses, such as liberal arts, that have little or nothing to do with the
demands of business). The Australian business education environment remains
more specialized than that in the US. One result of this greater
specialization is that Australian employers value the business degree
education in its own right, rather than viewing it as simply a signal of
worker productivity potential such that all majors are more or less 'lumped'
together for recruiting purposes (as often occurs in the US).
Agreed. A management major leads to 21 year olds graduating and expecting a
CEO role without experience or understanding of the need to integrate a
business with its external environment (capital markets, regulators etc.). A
manager without accounting savvy is like a car driver without eyes. That is
why more and more corporates are recruiting CPAs to senior management
positions.
Marketing continues to struggle for credibility much more so than does
accounting. Most marketing 'knowledge' is simple common sense, or at least
can be created by one with little or no formal training. This, again, is not
the case for the specialized knowledge required in accounting.
I generally agree with this rough summary of the differences between
accounting and finance, but I believe it is a false dichotomy to imply that
one should either study accounting OR finance. I study both, majoring in
Accounting AND Corporate Finance (and Political Science, and previously
Monetary Economics, but that's another discussion!). I find finance to be
more interesting, with greater scope for creative and innovative thinking
than has accounting ('creative finance' being a positive descriptor!), but
the use of accounting information is such an important input to financial
analysis that ignorance of it is dangerous! The intersection of the
disciplines makes for some particularly interesting and difficult problems
that senior corporate managers, accounting professionals and standards
setters, and capital markets participants must all face.
Most jobs that I have come across in business will hire someone with an
accounting degree before any other. The actual marketing field being a
notable exception. I don't agree with these people saying the money is in
marketing. My wife works in marketing. She makes less than I do and I
haven't even finished school yet. It all depends on the company of course.
The good money in the marketing field is in the advertising area. People
working for corporate marketing units do no better than anyone else in the
corporation.
Generally, the marketing and management degrees are thought of as being
"easy". A typical marketing or management major at my school is someone who
started out in finance or accounting and could not "hack it". In the
company I work for (with some 125k employees), job postings come across
every day. 90% of them list an accounting degree as the preferred
requirement. This includes jobs not only in accounting fields but also in
areas like logistics and purchasing. Someone with an accounting degree has
demonstrated not just an understanding of GAAP, but also the ability to
analyze and utilize information.... very important traits in business these
days.
Finance is a decent degree, and I think accounting majors would do well to
minor in it if they plan on working in corporate America or sitting for
their CM
A: A baccalaureate Finance degree