What Should I Study? (SRS) Tech Or Finance

[Nicklol]

I've been doing security for years and never went to college.
Never took out student loans or anything but I feel I wasted too many years (im 30).
I want to make proper money and not work overnight shifts or weird hours anymore.
The plan is to study something online and I want to do it within the year.

I took one of those personality tests and a lot of the questions I just answered randomly cuz my answer could change depending on the situation.. but I got ISTJ.
Apparently some of the good career fits for someone with that personality type would be: Police work, computers (tech stuff), accounting or teaching.
I was looking into accounting or something in tech. A college I was looking at has both accounting and software engineering online courses.
I don't mind a career where i'm working completely alone and crunching numbers or something like that all day. It just has to be tolerable and make me better money.

Anyone have any insight on either of those 2 career paths? (srs)
If I sucked at math in the past, maybe accounting isnt the way to go?. Not sure but I just need to pick something.

[paulinkansas]

I got my degree in Finance and did most of my MBA. What do I do now? Rent out furnished houses to guys that went to a tech school. Welders, pipefitters, instrumentation, electricians. They start around $30/hour and top out around $50. 40 hour week is unheard of. 50-70 is the norm when they are working. They probably work 6-10 months out of the year and have a back up job when they aren't working on the road.

[MetroBrah]

I'm the same way brother (not in security, but 30 years old that didn't go to college). From what I understand, accounting is probably not the way to go for us and I don't think either one of us want to be in school for the length of time it takes to become a CPA or to earn a finance degree and work at an IB or PE firm.

Tech is the only thing that you can do that requires certifications that you can 1. learn at your own pace, from home, and 2. Earn one or more certs in under a year that could make you employable.

I've pretty much only ever been an admin/clerk, bookkeeper and a salesman for my entire working adult life. All things that require no degree, but I am currently studying for the Sec+ as a backup plan and just for personal achievement goals.

[_zman]

I got my degree in finance for personal reasons and understanding money and investments better. It's been extremely value on a personal level. It's not necessarily the best career and you have so many more options for certifications and career fields when it comes to tech. You could get a minor in finance as well, but I'm definitely recommending the tech direction.

Finance degrees do get a preference in a lot of business jobs because it's one of the harder business degrees to get. You'll learn excel and a lot of math formulas, but you can learn all of that on your own, just like you can with tech, however. If you don't live in a finance job market, you'll more than likely have to move as well. I live in a metro of a million plus and the jobs offered are typically in accounting or entry level (a lot of people hate accounting jobs and entry level finance until you get into a better position in a few years) So keep that in mind. Look for jobs now in the career you plan to graduate in. This doesn't mean those jobs will be there when you graduate, but it will give you an idea of how many listings are out there in your local market. You can look up job forecasts as well and i'd venture to guess the tech market is going no where but up.

[AccountingMajor]

I've been doing security for years and never went to college.
Never took out student loans or anything but I feel I wasted too many years (im 30).
I want to make proper money and not work overnight shifts or weird hours anymore.
The plan is to study something online and I want to do it within the year.

I took one of those personality tests and a lot of the questions I just answered randomly cuz my answer could change depending on the situation.. but I got ISTJ.
Apparently some of the good career fits for someone with that personality type would be: Police work, computers (tech stuff), accounting or teaching.
I was looking into accounting or something in tech. A college I was looking at has both accounting and software engineering online courses.
I don't mind a career where i'm working completely alone and crunching numbers or something like that all day. It just has to be tolerable and make me better money.

Anyone have any insight on either of those 2 career paths? (srs)
If I sucked at math in the past, maybe accounting isnt the way to go?. Not sure but I just need to pick something.

OP I would NOT recommend accounting, unless you get your CPA (or equivalent) (realistically 6+ years of school + 2+ years of experience. Wages are extremely low here in San Diego where it doesn't even cover rent. I wouldn't even touch business at all. If I could do it all over, I would have done something more computer/engineering based, it takes a special person to be good at that stuff. While any monkey can major in business and get an accounting degree. Many of these jobs also favor women as there are all sorts of programs in place specifically meant only for women which I think is strange because most of my class was women lol

If you do accounting, you might want to consider moving to where the jobs are at if you serious, but again 1st you would have to do school. I've worked with people in the past with no degree or irrelevant degrees, but they were pretty old and didn't know how to use a computer, so that isn't an option now for you as that time has passed.

Also it's a myth that accounting = good at math. Accounting more related to law than math. It's just allocating #s to categories at it's most basic level. In school we had to use those basic baby calculators, not T9 level stuff. I wish accounting was just number crunching since I love that **** too, but the typical job is pretty social and will involve you talking to multiple people in the organization. I'm fortunate because where I work, I'm alone and rarely need to take calls as most is done through email. It's the complete opposite of what I did before.

But if you get in, it's an extremely cushy job as long as your supervisor isn't an *******.

[DoragonKingu]

Where are you going to take online classes from?

[Zjunky]

Keep in mind - you are a much better judge of yourself than random people from the internet.

That said, visit your local library and look at some of the career and personality guides (Myers-Briggs, What Color is Your Parachute, etc.). Figure out what path you want to go on.

Once that is determined, go back to the library. Read up on that subject and get familiar with it before you start spending money on it. As long as your path is still clear, make sure your are going to get a good rate of return. Does this "online college" have decent reputation? What do people think of the graduates from that school? Do not trust the marketing from the school - seek out unbiased opinions before spending money on a program.

And look hard at that math background. Do you still suck at it? Keep in mind that Computer and Engineering stuff is heavy on applied math/logic.

[GodlessWonder]

I've been doing security for years and never went to college.
Never took out student loans or anything but I feel I wasted too many years (im 30).
I want to make proper money and not work overnight shifts or weird hours anymore.
The plan is to study something online and I want to do it within the year.

I took one of those personality tests and a lot of the questions I just answered randomly cuz my answer could change depending on the situation.. but I got ISTJ.
Apparently some of the good career fits for someone with that personality type would be: Police work, computers (tech stuff), accounting or teaching.
I was looking into accounting or something in tech. A college I was looking at has both accounting and software engineering online courses.
I don't mind a career where i'm working completely alone and crunching numbers or something like that all day. It just has to be tolerable and make me better money.

Anyone have any insight on either of those 2 career paths? (srs)
If I sucked at math in the past, maybe accounting isnt the way to go?. Not sure but I just need to pick something.

Accounting isn't really about math. You have to be decent with numbers, but it is more about organization and understanding how to keep track of finances.

[sooby]

I've been doing security for years and never went to college.
Never took out student loans or anything but I feel I wasted too many years (im 30).
I want to make proper money and not work overnight shifts or weird hours anymore.
The plan is to study something online and I want to do it within the year.

I took one of those personality tests and a lot of the questions I just answered randomly cuz my answer could change depending on the situation.. but I got ISTJ.
Apparently some of the good career fits for someone with that personality type would be: Police work, computers (tech stuff), accounting or teaching.
I was looking into accounting or something in tech. A college I was looking at has both accounting and software engineering online courses.
I don't mind a career where i'm working completely alone and crunching numbers or something like that all day. It just has to be tolerable and make me better money.

Anyone have any insight on either of those 2 career paths? (srs)
If I sucked at math in the past, maybe accounting isnt the way to go?. Not sure but I just need to pick something.

accounting brah checking in here

Accounting is not about math or number crunching at all. The hardest thing you are going to do math wise is apply percentages and multiplication. And you can use Microsoft Excel for that ... lol. Being familiar with accounting software, ERP systems, Excel and computers in general is helpful.

Accounting is such a broad field however.

You can be the guy responsible for financial budgeting, planning, strategies. You would be responsible for creating financial forecasting, reports, all sorts of analyses and coming up with financial solutions and suggestions to improve financial metrics. Management will hold you accountable for all of this chit tho.

Or financial reporting which is all about financial statements, applying financial standards and developing accounting policies, ensuring controls and standards are being adhered to, can require a lot of attention to detail.

External auditing involves travelling to a client's business, lots of social interaction, customer service, being a person who asks a lot of questions and picks up on things very quickly. It is also a bish and there is a lot of pressure and deadlines to be met. But it can help you explore different professional environments and reveal to you what you are looking for in your professional career.

There's also internal auditing, tax advisors/specialists, controllers, operations. There's also a niche market for accountants who are specialists with tech.

For me I am more in the financial reporting realm and I find it to be the most chill. Currently working from home right now, a few phone calls a day, answer some emails, work on some reports, take multiple chits, monitor some ledger accounts and do bank reconciliations, submit expenses for technologically illiterate tradies then misc lol.

Auditing especially at the lower levels is a major pain in the phucking ass and there are days where you just want to off yourself srs, but overall a good experience to go through. I think the most important skills to have are general computer skills, organization, attention to detail and communication. Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines in certain other instances.



Since you are in Canada OP, you can apply for the CPA program. It'll likely take you several years depending on how fast you can blast through it, but it is something you can do part-time at your own pace while you get your experience and money up. It may be difficult to get an entry level job and with covid I'm not sure how great job prospects are. But there area always companies looking for people with certain skillsets and what not. Money wise it depends really. Obviously you get more money if you have a CPA designation, and there are CPAs having all sorts of positions from staff accounting to CEO 10K/days. You don't have to be in accounting strictly and can branch out to other fields where some of the skills of a CPA can be put to use. But in the accounting field, money is honestly kind of meh, it's OK but nothing mind blowing but you do have options outside the field however. You don't to go through university as you can take courses directly from CPA Ontario, as far as I know but you may want to look further in that.


https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/become-a...t-the-cpa-prep


My guess is probably a year for the preparatory courses. And if you are willing to no-life it, can manage it and are overall smart you could fast-track and finish the other courses plus the exam in 2 years, while gaining practical experience. But the final exam is pretty hard and only offered 2 times a year. You could technically become a CPA in 3 years from now but more realistically closer to 4-5 years.

[imbeingcereal]

Finance is useless if you're not at a top school. Most "finance" jobs are FP&A, etc. which are glorified accounting anyway. Finance only pays elite salaries if you do IB/PE/HF/AM, but you won't get in unless you're at a Harvard/Wharton type of school or have insane connections. It's not impossible, but you'd REALLY have to hustle and even when you get in, you could burn out really quickly working 80 hours a week tweaking simplistic models in Excel/PowerPoint to sell some company as a banker.

For most people, the question should really be should I get my CPA or do tech. I'd say on average tech will win pretty handily. The fact is it's just harder to differentiate yourself as a CPA since the knowledge isn't as technical and there's more people who can do the work versus tech. If you are business-savvy, have good people skills, and are solid enough at debits/credits to get by, then you'll do really well as a CPA because you will become either a Partner, CFO, or VP+ at a company and make a lot of money.

Outside of those rare people who are really sharp at accounting and very personable, however, your success in accounting will be more due to factors outside of your control, like how well you get along with your manager, than it will be due to smarts/sheer work ethic IMO.

[GodlessWonder]

I'm an accounting manager at a manufacturing company. I can tell you right now that success in finance/accounting has more to do with your social skills instead of your problem solving skills.

Why?

Because you'll be spending most of your time trying to:
* get department managers to submit their budget figures
* or yelling at people for coding purchase orders to the wrong account
* or debating and justifying to auditors why you chose a certain revenue recognition method
* or having to explain to your employees how to properly book a journal entry
* or having to deal with vendors when they pester you about when they're getting paid
* or having to deal with a director who calls you in a panic about why revenues dropped
* or having to talk sense into management when they try to get you to hide expenses on balance sheet instead of recognizing it on the P&L


You'll notice that the one common theme is that you're going to be dealing with people A LOT.

People's actions directly affects the bottom line, therefore to manage the company's finances requires you to manage people - even if those people aren't your direct subordinates and you don't have authority to issue them orders, you still have to get them to cooperate with you.

This is why people skills are so important in this line of work.

Personally, i've never been a people person. I'm actually an introverted guy and I admit that I'm socially awkward.

But after 12 years of working in finance I've learned that working with people is not much different than training zoo animals...... It comes down to knowing when to reward and when to punish.....


I would advise you to assess your tolerance for people's annoying personalities before you decide to commit to finance/accounting....


best of luck.

So much accuracy.

Just LOL @ managers who come to you asking why revenue dropped when they are the ones who made a decision and ****ed up. Some of them don't even understand the financial documents they send to the accounting department. Just morons.

Doubly funny that they expect accounting to hide their mistakes. Yea, like the accounting people are going to go to jail because you're scared to be held accountable to stockholders and the board.

People are ****.

[JStrez]

A STEM Degree would serve you pretty well and those jobs really aren't going anywhere and if anything will be in more demand. Something like Computer Science or Engineering would be a huge pay off if you could make it work.

Ultimately if you like doing it, who cares. So many people wage slaving at jobs they don't even like.

[rinseddd]

become a tradie or a cop.

get your DZ license. costs a few grand.

lol at an online accounting course. you gonna work at some tiny office in a scarboro strip plaza doing income taxes for poverty immigrants?

tech....if you were made for it, you wudn't be asking.

some "chitty" jobs that pay the bills:

mechanics....all my mates who work in shops make good money
concrete truck driver : 30-35/hr...comes to around 70k/yr
tradie machine operator: 30-45/hr
tow truck driver: 70K/yr....much more if you're a cheating scumbag or criminal. but very fierce competition
ttc

also keep applying for bullchit jobs with the city of toronto or other municipalites. once you get in, you're set. my mate got in as a janitor, now he's a foreman making close to 100K.

canada is full of educationcels. so most of their fields are saturated.