The economy is weak. The job market is a question mark. Students pile on debt to get college degrees that may turn out to be of little value to them in terms of job opportunities. What to do if you”™re contemplating the future, and a college major?
Take accounting.
“It is popular and continues to be,” said Donna Grand Pre, dean of admissions at Pace University. “Students see it as stable, and there are a lot of opportunities that come from having that background. When you”™re trained to be an accountant, whether an auditor or a private or public accountant, you are analytical, you are trained to have interpersonal and communication skills, you have face-to-face meetings about the control of the organization, and because you”™re working with financial statements, you have global insight. The training definitely carries over to other career opportunities.”
It”™s the part about interpersonal and communication skills that surprises many people.
“Accountants have a big image problem,” said Carolyn Christesen, professor and curriculum chair of accounting at Westchester Community College. “The Pathways Commission just released a report on the future of accounting education. They”™re trying to get the word out to high school students to help them understand what accounting is all about. People skills are extremely important. The general public doesn”™t understand that accountants deal with clients, deal with people a lot and need very good communication and people skills. They have to speak and write.”
She said the number one complaint they hear from companies that are recruiting accounting students is that students”™ communication skills need to improve. Christesen said her own daughter went to college to study marketing and “fell in love” with accounting. “Her people skills were key when she interviewed,” she said.
Grand Pre said accounting is the most popular major in Pace”™s Lubin School of Business, which, she said, should not be too surprising since Pace was founded as an accounting school in 1906.
“It”™s inherent in the Pace DNA,” she said. “And the one thing that has become very popular are the combined degrees, they offer the ability to do a bachelor”™s in public accounting and a master”™s in financial management, as well as a BBA/MBA (bachelor”™s and master”™s in business administration).” The combined degrees, she said, are money savers ”“ two degrees for the price of one. “For the BBA/MBA two years ago we had 100 percent employment, and in 2011 it was 95 percent.”
Grand Pre said Pace has also increased its online offerings in accounting to meet the needs of students who are working. In addition, to pave the way for students to be able to move into careers as certified public accountants, she said Pace has adjusted its degrees to meet the 150-credit requirement in New York state to sit for the CPA exam.
Pat Healy, chairman of the accounting department at the Lubin School of Business, said there are three programs that allow students to sit for the CPA exam ”“ a bachelor”™s degree program, the 5-year BBA/MBA program and the BBA/MS in finance program. “All guarantee that a student will be able to sit for the CPA exam in New York state.”
Students also come to Pace to get a master”™s in accounting, if they have studied something else as an undergraduate, and then take the CPA exam, Healy said. As for the trends that have developed in the field, “We are seeing a lot of interest in international accounting and are offering more courses in that. We”™ve seen 11 percent growth in accounting majors over the past five years. Students see the accounting firms on campus recruiting students and that is attractive to them.” Healy and Christesen say the male-female ratio of students is just about 50-50, but Healy points out that at the partner level in firms, “it”™s only 20 percent female.”
Christesen said there are usually about 300 to 400 accounting students at WCC, and that “enrollment peaked when the recession peaked. But it”™s steady, just like accountants are. There are always jobs, always opportunities. It”™s not a fad, it”™s not gonna go away.”
