So my daughter wants to be an accountant

[132orbust]

I received so much help when DD1 was applying to Med School on here so I am wanted to pick some brains again.
DD2 (Yr 12) wants to become an Accountant. She wants to go to University and I wondering if anyone has DC currently pursuing this route or indeed any personal experience.
Any course/uni recommendations?
She is mathematical but wouldn't want to do a Maths degree. Studied Economics at GCSE but didn't want to continue to A level.
Currently taking Maths, Chemistry and History A Levels.
Is the Uni route a good one? It is so hard not being able to go to open days etc.

Oh yes and I also think the apprenticeship route is actually a better one, unless she really wants to go to Uni.

I totally agree with @Silvergreen:
Don't do an accounting degree. If she wants to do accountancy, she should do something she enjoys and she can do well at in a good university.

It's good to do something that will use the analytical part of her brain but if she gets a good degree then a grad scheme will be perfect for her. There are quite a lot of accountancy bodies but I think qualifying as an ACA is the route to the best salary long term!

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) - assuming you're in one of those countries - has some decent sources of information:
careers.icaew.com/find-your-route/training-as-a-graduate

An accountancy degree is not necessary to becoming an accountant. That comes from the qualification. Being an accountant is more than just being a numbers person.

I would recommend doing a degree in a subject which interests her - then see if she wants to become an accountant after that. Look for intern experience at an accountancy firm.

I’m an accountant, and think an accountancy degree is a complete waste of time.

Also, make sure she’s prepared for the no-holds-barred thrills of the job 😄😄😄

(I am an accountant btw)

@ultragroupie

Also, make sure she’s prepared for the no-holds-barred thrills of the job 😄😄😄

(I am an accountant btw)

It’s absolutely like that every day 😂

@Iggly I know! Honestly people have no idea

I'm taking all this in and will go through the thread with her once she has arrived home having braved and survived the joys of London buses in a pandemic which is a bit like your picture @ultragroupie

@FizzyPink

I know someone who is doing the apprenticeship with PwC at the moment and thinks it’s brilliant. Much quicker way to get qualified, lots of work experience as you go and you get paid instead of building up debt!

As someone who hires a lot of new grads I would say their biggest challenge is not having corporate experience. It’s so obvious which of them have done a year in industry or similar because they know how to communicate with a client, how to write a proper email so for me experience counts for a lot more than a degree.

I also know someone who is doing this at the moment, different employer, but covid has meant that for the past year and foreseeable future the only experience they've had/will have is the inside of their bedroom. I'm quite surprised actually to hear that any apprentices are getting work experience

With the unpredictability of covid if your DD wants to go to uni I'd suggest she does and reviews the world in 3 years time. I wouldn't recommend my DC to take a job as a school leaver for a professional qualification where they can't get a proper start on it. Accountancy will still be there after uni, students with a poor A level experience need to live a bit at uni imo

I agree that management accountancy is more interesting than financial / audit, but Big 4 training will give you a really solid grounding, and then it's pretty easy to move into industry and the more commercial side. Ex auditors can be pretty annoying initially but generally mellow quite quickly.

I'm here!

DS is doing flying start with PWC, he's happy. Good coaching, good prospects, good placements...

That's an accountancy degree that includes the professional qualifications.

Check your PMs

DH and I are both accountants. Contrary to previous posters, I recommend the Accountancy Degree route.

If you research well, these degrees can offer you exemptions from upto 10 of your professional exams, which puts you well on the way to qualification once you leave uni. This degree is not necessary to become an accountant, but it saves you an awful lot of time and additional exams after uni.

I echo the PP who said after the Covid disruption it is nice for our DD to have a good uni experience before embarking on the serious world of life and work.

@picklemewalnuts at be interested to hear your sons experience. Is it quite pressured to do the exams alongside university and working? I heard there is a high drop out rate

He says it's easier than a levels, though the tax module is hard. Generally if you work it's fine. The placement term is often too busy to study, but there's enough time before the uni term to catch up. So one term you work full time, one you are at Uni. Realistically terms are so short there's still plenty of time to catch up on anything you find hard.

Is he guaranteed a job at the end (as long as he passes?).

Yes, absolutely. Paid properly on placement.
After 4 year degree, he does one more year with them to get fully qualified- again, proper pay.
Guaranteed job etc. Clear progression.

Hard work- long hours. While they are students on placement it doesn't matter as they are paid by the hour. After that though, it's just expected as part of your standard hours- occasional weekends, late nights etc. There's a company policy and allowance to order in take away on late work nights.

My son is planning on staying a few years then jumping ship for better quality of life/work life balance.

I think the school leaver programmes do offer a great way to get qualified without debt.

But I also don't think they replace uni, especially with covid going on. I am grateful for what I learnt at my big4 training scheme but I didn't much enjoy my time there (and I do really genuinely enjoy accounting). The experience I had at uni was really important for shaping who I am, even though that was very very hard work too.

I wouldn't do an accounting degree if I was picking unless there's nothing else she'd like to do. We had people who did degrees in anything fron archeology, to English literature to physics to accounting to chemistry. So really free to just do whatever takes your fancy for a degree (and gives you more options if she decides it's maybe not for her during uni).

I would recommend an unrelated degree in a subject she is genuinely interested and good at, and then seeking a graduate position with a firm or public sector organisation who will put them through the professional accountancy qualification relevant to the area of work she’s looking to go into. Our strongest graduate recruits have tended to be those with solid academic degrees (history, economics, geography) who then sat every module in the professional qualification rather than those with Accounting or similar degrees who claimed the exemptions.

However I’m in a large public sector organisation rather than Big 4 so we may be looking for slightly different skills.

Hi, I just wanted to say if she likes math puzzles that much has she thought of becoming an actuary rather than an accountant?
But also I second everyone else that a degree in something she is interested in and will do well in would be best and the summer internship in a Big 4 or large industry employer would be the best Uni route.
The deadline for applying to internships is usually in the Autumn at the start of second year.
I know a lot of people who got conditional job offers from internships but more importantly I know people who realised it wasn't for them and switched paths with a different masters.
Getting a real idea of what your working life would be like is invaluable.

I’d love to know what @Hoghgyni advised please.

If you want the high paid jobs and ICAEW then do a non accountancy degree at a very top university and apply for the graduate schemes when you are there.

I worked for 18 years in one of the big 4 firms (until 2019). I would say there are so many different routes in that it really doesn’t matter what subject you take at uni, if you decide you want to go for the experience or to keep your options open. As others have said, a degree isn’t necessary.

I recently did a trawl through LinkedIn looking at old colleagues. There are people at manager level and above with degrees from all types of universities (RG, ex poly etc), in a huge range of subjects (including Accountancy as well as all the traditional academic subjects) and those without degrees too. The graduate scheme is just one way to get in, but not necessarily the best. I did a history degree and then a three year ICAEW training contract at a tiny local firm, before moving to the big four. The best recruit I ever had working for me did a sports degree at an ex poly, then worked in finance in the NHS, putting himself through the ACCA exams himself. He was really commercially minded and very bright and he’s doing well now.

The ICAEW graduates aren’t fast tracked above the higher apprentices - and often I found the latter recruits much better. So I would suggest she does whatever she wants at university- whatever she will do best in - and like others have said, get work experience.

Agree that an accountancy degree is not necessary. In our (smallish) firm we have only had one trainee taken on in the last fifteen years that had an accountancy degree and we normally take a handful on most years.

It was actually a slight issue as due to the exemptions he got from some of the exams for his professional qualifications, there was a bit of a mismatch between his 'on paper' skills and 'real life' skills. All resolved now, thankfully, but for a while he was a bit neither fish nor fowl.

My advice would be to look beyond the Big 4, too, in particular for work experience. Plenty of smaller firms have excellent training contracts on offer and will also offer summer internships or similar work experience opportunities.

If she does want to go down the accountancy degree route, look for ones that offer a sandwich year in industry. Work experience is always useful, not just in securing a post grad job but in seeing which areas she may want to specialise in going forward.