Accounting vs. Computer Science?

[Medellin]

Which (university) program is more in demand in the job market right now?

It seems like everyone is getting into accounting, but the deal with computer science is that it can be outsourced to some third world country like India or the sort

[boyoflondon]

Accounting > Comp Sci ................

Numbers are what makes this world go around ;)

[dandy2008]

Accounting, bookkeeping, tax returns prep are already outsourced to India and Middle East.

[the_fm]

why do people go for what's in demand instead of following their passion? seriously, we need more passionate people, not people who'll eventually hate their job :|

btw, there's an oversaturation in accounting right now

[dandy2008]

btw, there's an oversaturation in accounting right now

There is a surplus of accountants, financial analysts (10,000+ CFAs in Canada), teachers, IT people, engineers, HR folks etc.

Might as well become a physician.

[BananaHunter]

I took some comp sci classes in high school. I'd say if you're really really good with comp sci, then go for it. Otherwise take accounting. I find comp sci to require more brain power than accounting so there's probably less supply of good programmers than good accountants.

I finished accounting program at UofT and I must say, the program is fairly easy. The job prospects are there but the market is way too saturated. Entry lvl jobs demand experience, giving many fresh grads a tough time job hunting. The phrase "every company needs an accountant" is ********. Every company needs a controller...and you're not going to become a controller without years of exp. Computerization makes entry level accounting job really boring.

There's also the dream of working for a big CA firm. If you get into accounting, you'll find most of your classmates are gunning for the CA designation.

[dandy2008]

I took some comp sci classes in high school. I'd say if you're really really good with comp sci, then go for it. Otherwise take accounting. I find comp sci to require more brain power than accounting so there's probably less supply of good programmers than good accountants.

I finished accounting program at UofT and I must say, the program is fairly easy. The job prospects are there but the market is way too saturated. Entry lvl jobs demand experience, giving many fresh grads a tough time job hunting. The phrase "every company needs an accountant" is ********. Every company needs a controller...and you're not going to become a controller without years of exp. Computerization makes entry level accounting job really boring.

There's also the dream of working for a big CA firm. If you get into accounting, you'll find most of your classmates are gunning for the CA designation.

The market is saturated with those having accounting degrees from places like Seneca, Humber, George Brown etc, but if you have your Bachelor's degree form UofT, York, Queens....you will have tons of job opportunities.

[Medellin]

why do people go for what's in demand instead of following their passion? seriously, we need more passionate people, not people who'll eventually hate their job :|

btw, there's an oversaturation in accounting right now

because I just need an undergrad. I have a passion for law and that's what I plan to go, but I need an undergrad I can fall back on if all else fails

[BananaHunter]

The market is saturated with those having accounting degrees from places like Seneca, Humber, George Brown etc, but if you have your Bachelor's degree form UofT, York, Queens....you will have tons of job opportunities.

I beg to differ. Most entry level jobs don't care much about your education background. If you have an accounting background, that's nice but it has never been a major selling point in interviews. It has always been my work exp that seems to land me offers, not my B com. This is strongly backed by people who have degrees and have trouble finding a job in accounting.

Entry level accounting jobs aren't difficult. You don't really need a uni educated person to do it. Opportunities are just that - opportunities. There's no law saying you can't apply to a certain job without certain credentials.

I'm not saying it's really hard to get a job in accounting with uni education. It's not easy either. The fact that companies can ask you to have a degree for a menial job implies there's abundance in supply of job seekers. And you can't be REALLY good at accounting the same way you can be a REALLY good programmer.

[fdhw]

if you are going to use accounting degree as your fallback plan. Just remember that designations (CA,CMA,CGA) will get you that accounting job. Not your B.comm

[dandy2008]

I beg to differ. Most entry level jobs don't care much about your education background. If you have an accounting background, that's nice but it has never been a major selling point in interviews. It has always been my work exp that seems to land me offers, not my B com. This is strongly backed by people who have degrees and have trouble finding a job in accounting.

Entry level accounting jobs aren't difficult. You don't really need a uni educated person to do it. Opportunities are just that - opportunities. There's no law saying you can't apply to a certain job without certain credentials.

I'm not saying it's really hard to get a job in accounting with uni education. It's not easy either. The fact that companies can ask you to have a degree for a menial job implies there's abundance in supply of job seekers. And you can't be REALLY good at accounting the same way you can be a REALLY good programmer.

The big 4, top tier IBs always recruit at UofT, York, Queens..never heard of them recruiting at Seneca.

Having a degree from a reputable university will land you interviews.

[nickinto]

The big 4, top tier IBs always recruit at UofT, York, Queens..never heard of them recruiting at Seneca.

Having a degree from a reputable university will land you interviews.

He's talking about book keeping positions..not accounting.

[dandy2008]

He's talking about book keeping positions..not accounting.

Oh, I see.

[Medellin]

if you are going to use accounting degree as your fallback plan. Just remember that designations (CA,CMA,CGA) will get you that accounting job. Not your B.comm

Thanks, and yes, I've considered it. That's still an easier task than law school

[the_fm]

because I just need an undergrad. I have a passion for law and that's what I plan to go, but I need an undergrad I can fall back on if all else fails

oh, as a fall back. well, accounting might be more useful along side your law degree than having computer science/law, imo

[BananaHunter]

because I just need an undergrad. I have a passion for law and that's what I plan to go, but I need an undergrad I can fall back on if all else fails


If you just need an undergrad, I think accounting + law is the better combination. Plus, commerce program might be more "fun" than computer science depending on what kind of person you are. You'll meet lots of gamers in comp sci programs vs all kinds of people in accounting. Plus you won't have to stress your brain so much trying to debug the program you just wrote. Programming is fun....until you realize your code doesn't work and spend the whole night trying to figure out wtf you were trying to make. If you are a genius, then of course this won't apply to you.

If I were you, I'd make the decision based on how good your programming skills are.

Accounting also makes you better with personal finance imo.

[redg2]

oh, as a fall back. well, accounting might be more useful along side your law degree than having computer science/law, imo

Law can go with anything, because every industry has issues in Law.

Computer Science and Law will help if you like to deal with patents, licensing and those types of issues.

But Accounting is just as good for law.

But I agree, even though you like law, make a list of undergrad programs you like and choose the one that goes best with law.

Money will come to you if you do something you enjoy and are good at.

[danfromwaterloo]

Do what you love, not what "makes the most money". If you want to be a chef, be a chef. If you want to be an engineer, be an engineer. I don't know a single person who "wants" to be an accountant. They figure it's a safe bet.

You're going to be doing what you decide for 40 years. How do you best want to spend your life?

[redg2]

If you just need an undergrad, I think accounting + law is the better combination. Plus, commerce program might be more "fun" than computer science depending on what kind of person you are. You'll meet lots of gamers in comp sci programs vs all kinds of people in accounting. Plus you won't have to stress your brain so much trying to debug the program you just wrote. Programming is fun....until you realize your code doesn't work and spend the whole night trying to figure out wtf you were trying to make. If you are a genius, then of course this won't apply to you.

If I were you, I'd make the decision based on how good your programming skills are.

Accounting also makes you better with personal finance imo.

Debugging is just another form of error checking. There is no valuable work in this world without the possibility of errors happening.

Comp Sci has all sorts of people (gamers, hackers, researchers, LOTS of tech. entrepreneurs, etc).

Accounting can be even more boring than Comp Sci IMO, especially when you realize your numbers/sheets don't balance, it'll be even worst.

If you like puzzles, go Comp sci. If you like numbers, go Accounting.

[dandy2008]

Accounting can be even more boring than Comp Sci IMO, especially when you realize your numbers/sheets don't balance, it'll be even worst.


Ahh, I remember when the amounts didn't match while preparing the cash flow statement during the CPA exam......scary.

[Medellin]

Thanks a lot guys. I still haven't made up my mind but I'm considering a lot of the things mentioned in this thread. It's nice that I can talk to other people about this.
Do what you love, not what "makes the most money". If you want to be a chef, be a chef. If you want to be an engineer, be an engineer. I don't know a single person who "wants" to be an accountant. They figure it's a safe bet.

You're going to be doing what you decide for 40 years. How do you best want to spend your life?


Read my earlier post please. If my plan works, I'll be doing neither in 10 years or so

[TotallyKiller]

Accounting, bookkeeping, tax returns prep are already outsourced to India and Middle East.

If you're getting into Accounting, it's unlikely that you'll focus your career on bookkeeping or tax returns. I don't think the average new grad looking into a CA will have to worry about much overseas outsourcing.

[noktrnl]

You should have stated right at the beginning that you had a "passion for law" and were planning to go for law school.

IF you REALLY want to go to law school, go into whatever undergrad program you find to be the easiest, whether it be accounting, compsci, or the arts. Law schools only care about GPA and LSAT. Go for whatever will give you the higher GPA.
Normally this would be whatever you have the most interest in.

[ElvaSoShexai]

even tho com sci jobs r being outsourced.. every single cs grad i kno is doing decent to being very well off... accounting on the other hand... every1 is not so well off...

[poedua]

I took some comp sci classes in high school. I'd say if you're really really good with comp sci, then go for it. Otherwise take accounting. I find comp sci to require more brain power than accounting so there's probably less supply of good programmers than good accountants.

I finished accounting program at UofT and I must say, the program is fairly easy. The job prospects are there but the market is way too saturated. Entry lvl jobs demand experience, giving many fresh grads a tough time job hunting. The phrase "every company needs an accountant" is ********. Every company needs a controller...and you're not going to become a controller without years of exp.


Computerization makes entry level accounting job really boring.

There's also the dream of working for a big CA firm. If you get into accounting, you'll find most of your classmates are gunning for the CA designation.

Accounting is numbingly boring all on it's own - there's no ' Computerization ' required. :lol:

[poedua]

Do what you love, not what "makes the most money". If you want to be a chef, be a chef. If you want to be an engineer, be an engineer.

I don't know a single person who "wants" to be an accountant.

They figure it's a safe bet.

You're going to be doing what you decide for 40 years. How do you best want to spend your life?

Well said.

I've never heard any kids dream about their future and say they always wanted to ' be an accountant when I grow up '. ;)

[baller89]

Thanks, and yes, I've considered it. That's still an easier task than law school

Well, to be honest, getting into a Big 4 firm (the CA path) would be around the same difficulty as going to law school in my opinion- Big 4 firms will want top grades + extra curriculars + personality- it has been slightly easier in the past but I only see it getting more difficult- I don't think accounting is something you can just do easily as an undergrad degree- Personally, it has completely restricted my ability to take other courses since the CA stream has so many credit requirements- Basically, I am just echoing what the others are saying- do something you are passionate about

[peterpatch]

Well said.

I've never heard any kids dream about their future and say they always wanted to ' be an accountant when I grow up '. ;)

That is because kids are naive and don't realize that astronaut, doctor, firefighter and other professions kids like may not fit their skills, require extreme levels of competitiveness and, in most cases, have extremely high barriers to entry.

For example kids don't really concretly understand what it is like to be a doctor, dealing with death, sickness and other things like this daily. Plus a 9 year old kid cannot possibly fathom the level of commitment it would take to get the education required for even a GP let alone advanced surgeon.

Just because you are an accountant doesn't mean you'll be doing boring work all the time, a lot of the accountants I have talked to wished someone had told them about accounting when they were a kid so they could be more informed about it.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an architect. I had no concrete idea of what that job was like, only information from books. I thought I would draw cool buildings all day and people would build them. I job shadowed an architect and learned that when architects graduate there is usually too many of them and too little work. Firms bid on architects and new people usually have to accept menial pay and low level jobs to start with. Then you have to deal with all the headaches of working your way up in a highly competive market etc. All jobs are like this and the supposedly glamourous jobs you thought were cool when you were a kid are probably 10x worse then normal jobs because of the glamour.

[poedua]

That is because kids are naive and don't realize that astronaut, doctor, firefighter and other professions kids like may not fit their skills, require extreme levels of competitiveness and, in most cases, have extremely high barriers to entry.

For example kids don't really concretly understand what it is like to be a doctor, dealing with death, sickness and other things like this daily. Plus a 9 year old kid cannot possibly fathom the level of commitment it would take to get the education required for even a GP let alone advanced surgeon.

Just because you are an accountant doesn't mean you'll be doing boring work all the time, a lot of the accountants I have talked to wished someone had told them about accounting when they were a kid so they could be more informed about it.

Fair enough - perhaps boring work ' most of the time ' is closer to reality.

[HammerRFDer]

Ya, definitely whichever you're better at.

The one thing I like to think about CS is that those that are really good at it can be orders of magnitudes more productive than those that aren't.

[rage2021]

If you have the passion for Comp Sci I'd say go for it..Its not for everybody but software Engineers make A LOT of money..I don't think many people realize this..And the industry is pretty hot for them now..Although who knows in a few years right? You cant predict this stuff. But if you honestly enjoy it and are passionate about it then everything should take care of itself. Also, I'm about to graduate and start working @ IBM with pretty nice pay to start so it seems to be working for me :)

[paulkloss]

Don't look at trends, look at what you enjoy. I made a mistake pursing the "hot" things too. I got into computer engineering at University of Waterloo, I completed terms 1A and 1B then went on to do a co-op at one of the big 4's IT dept. The culture was not for me, it was too fake, too contrived and too humorous. All these students kissing ass, killing themselves for their grades, all of us being slaves to corporate capitalism.

I never went back to UW, I was tired, flat out tired. Was it enough to get great grades in HS and all the necessary extras you had to do, in addition to a higher degree at UW?

Instead of chasing the same damn thing everyone else was chasing, like the computer science, comp eng, soft eng years ago to accounting (CA) today I went into the skilled trades.

I can say honestly I can make as much money as I want to, and I don't have all the non-sense of these A type phonies i came to despise. Now don't get me wrong, some of you already know accounting, comp sci isn't for you and some of you it is. Please follow your heart(s) and be real. I mean if I put an ad in the paper that said "**** shoveler for $150,000/year" it would be the same damn thing!!

I ended up becoming an electrician and don't regret it for one moment. I participate in many plant shutdowns and get paid very well to do very little (remember that!)

Paul

[resu]

It's unfortunate that you went to work for one of the big 4, which probably ranks at the top of brown-nosing and corporate slavery.

[oliverstwist]

Computer Science?

Enjoy your unemployment. How do I outsourced job?

[cnbc]

Enjoy your unemployment. How do I outsourced job?

Right, like accounting cannot be outsourced.

[Hairball]

If you have to be pessimistic, everything can be outsourced.

However, outsourcing isn't always the best solution to everything, so there will probably be accounting and computer science jobs around for the near future. You just have to show that you can do the job well.

[mymeowcat]

I tried to major in accounting but I found it really hard and even flunked an accounting class:( I wanted to do it since everyone around me said it was a safe bet.

I ended up graduating from U of A Finance instead but at the time there was a recession and life's twists brought me to Database Administration in 2001 (just before the dot.com bust) and my contacts got me to do software development (develop dbases and websites)...I learned the skills by books, surfing the net and trying to make programs on my own just hacking away at it.

I still say (if you can do accounting) that it is the safest bet...

In IT --- You don't make reasonable money until you have at least 3+ years of solid experience. Doing the standard A+, MCSE, networking, call center, fixing computers thing (aka future shop techie) is no good...You don't make cash unless you can do stuff others can not do (software development, computer engineering).

Make sure whatever you pick that you love it as well There will be a lot of BS you might have to put up with over the long term.

During the last recession while job hunting --- they told me to go "networking" so I did my best to be "Mister Popular", attended parties, went to Commerce Club's Networking events, get to know people ect ... turns out 99% of people you meet won't be able to help you --- very discouraging.

I accidentally got into computers by getting a menial job as a data entry person from a temp agency --- now I develop software to manage and administer data...made $8K per month and I hope to do the same until this recession comes to kick my poor butt:|

[Tereno]

Enjoy your unemployment. How do I outsourced job?

LOL. If you are worried about being outsourced - it means you're not good enough.

Software development is still a good market but yes, like everyone's said, don't do it if it's not for you. You're not going to be very successful if you don't like what you're doing. But then again, you're going to law, you should also figure out what sort of area in law you'd like to get to and get some sort of background on that?

[fyremist]

If you're going to do accounting, I recommend that you do it at a recognized school. Waterloo, Wilfred Laurier or U of T typically has most of the public accounting firm spots. If not, it will be extremely hard to land an interview.

[Jay Hova]

Consider this: UW Computing and Financial Management. If you like computer science, math and finance/business...program should be good for you. It's fairly new however.

[flito ray]

even tho com sci jobs r being outsourced.. every single cs grad i kno is doing decent to being very well off... accounting on the other hand... every1 is not so well off...

serious? every body i know that dose accounting is very rich making over 100 thousand a year

[spazzamatic]

Comp Sci :d

[Medellin]

Thanks for the posts guys. I'll keep these things in mind come next year :cheesygri