myoungii
Nov 21, 2009, 10:21 PM
Do you find yourself overwhelmed when first entering the field? I have 4 and a half accounting classes to go for my bachelors degree. I am currently enrolled in Advanced Accounting II and I have Auditing I and II and Taxation I and II left. I feel as though I do not know enough or have retained enough to adequately work in an accounting environment. I am an A/B student in each of my accounting classes to date. Is this a similar feeling for the majority of you?
morgaine300
Nov 22, 2009, 09:23 PM
Um... no. Because I had only two accounting classes, got jobs doing accounting related work, and then went back to school later, at which point in time I had a lot of experience behind me.
Although I always hate starting new jobs because I don't like anything I'm not familiar with, and a new company is always something one is not familiar with.
No one remembers everything coming out of school and anyone you work for (who has any brains) will not expect you to. They also should not dump you into advanced work. I don't know what your plans are, but if for instance, you were to work at a small accounting firm, you might never touch the advanced stuff and even half the intermediate stuff. They're not going to leave you in charge of an audit, and they aren't going to suddenly dump a bunch of difficult tax forms on you.
It would have been a good idea to work part-time somewhere doing something related to the field, like payables or something, just to get going on some related work and maybe start seeing how it fits in with other things, and then work into some basic bookkeeping work. That's a good way to get your feet wet. If you have time, you might still want to do something like that.
If you're planning to work at a public accounting firm, try to find the one that does a lot of almost-graduate or recent-graduate students. They're used to people in that position and know how to deal with it accordingly.