Accounting Major Second Guessing & Dealing With Criticisms http://accountinginstruction.info/ Objectives Work with different points of view, take what is helpful, and discard the noise. (Not designed to increase argument but possibly facilitate more productive debate). Help structure personal goals and use doubts constructively In this presentation we’re going to take a look at a problem from the perspective of an accounting major. Someone who is going to school and has chosen accounting as their primary field. Although we’re talking here to people that have chosen accounting and are in school for accounting, the same kind of thing applies to people that are working within the accounting field and more broadly basically any type of career choice or career path will apply or at least some of these items will apply to it, that problem being the second guessing of the major that we have chosen and dealing with some type of criticism with regards to the major, debate about the major that has been chosen, either from other students or from instructors or from other individuals that we are involved with Now we’re assuming at this point in time we’re thinking about someone who has basically chosen which path they want to go on. Note typically if someone’s going through say high school or undergraduate then we’re talking to a whole bunch of people trying to decide what’s an appropriate major what’s going to be a good major. At some point in time the decisions going to be made and we have to basically go into that process and continue with the decision making process and move forward with whatever decision we have been chosen. Typically at this point we’re thinking about people who have chosen accounting as their major and now are thinking about moving forward in accounting. Note that as you choose a major, as you narrow things down, as you have to do, it can be concerning because we often think about the things that we have given up That’s of just the way the mind is wired. We’re mentally set to be more concerned about the things that we’ve lost than the things that we’re going to gain. With regards to the choices that we make as we go into the choice usually we find that the choice that we have made and the more we think about the choice we’ve made then there’s basically infinite possibilities we have within that choice that we’ve made. We still have a tons of choices to make. Most people don’t narrow down enough and have too many choices and they end up basically getting stuck at a standstill. Business, Economics, & Practical Technical Skills questions: Accounting is not where the money is at Wake up and go where the action is Accounting will be completely automated someday Your job will be outsourced Accounting is not an integral part of the business model but just a miner task that need to be done, similar to the trash needing to be taken out Real business people focus on the money making components and higher somebody do accounting. Accounting is not the fun part of business. Marketing and advertising is where the fun is. Arts and Humanities Life activities should be focused on what you love doing. Who could love doing accounting? Money doesn’t really matter. Why focus so much time counting it? Life should be spent doing stuff and interacting with people. Why spend so much time working on number, ledgers, and with computers Sciences qeustions Life is about understanding the physical world. Money is just a tool that should be used towards this end As we learn accounting, we should be integrating these other areas as we can Whatever career we choose can be thought of as a focal point we use to build on. Whatever we know best will eventually lead into other topics as we expand out knowledge. As students we can expand our knowledge by learning components of other disciplines that most directly apply to ours Learn accounting software. Learn databases Learn tax software Learn managerial concepts, group dynamics, and economics