Accounting: Myth vs. Reality

Do you believe that accounting is a boring career? If that's the case, you probably don't know much about the industry, since there are lots of exciting and interesting accounting jobs. For instance, FBI agents who track smugglers are often CPAs, as are financial advisors to celebrities, software security experts, environmental consultants, and expert witnesses in business trials. Healthcare coordinators, international trade consultants, union financial officers, university professors, CFOs of major firms, entrepreneurs, and even members of Congress are also all often CPAs. While you might start out as just an accountant, the places you'll eventually go can be varied and interesting.

There's a myth that all accountants do is crunch numbers and do people's taxes, but the basic skills you learn as an accountant apply across the board. Many fields require you to document finances and operations and to know how to guide them, whether for individual people, organizations, or corporations. Sometimes you even do it for government bodies. After all, the group that finally got Al Capone in jail wasn't the police; it was the FBI's special auditing agents. About 5 percent of agents in the FBI are CPAs, and if you haven't passed the exam, the agency will give its own accounting test.

People who once occupied this position can easily move to the private sector and make even more than the considerable amount they made working for the FBI. Technically, adept agents can make well over $100,000 per year; or they can move to senior management, where there's no real limit on earnings if the organization is big enough. Intelligence firms and all kinds of other opportunities are available to CPAs who've worked for the government.



CPAs also do accounting for celebrities and get invited to movie sets, premiers, and get backstage passes, as well as the pride of working with celebrities. You'll learn to deal with people who make enormous amounts of money on a single project and who respect your ability to help them decide what to do with it. That's a pretty impressive job for someone who is traditionally viewed as just a number cruncher.

You can even get into forensic accounting—looking at incomplete or inaccurate information to come up with the real picture for an insurance company or law firm. It's not normal accounting work or auditing. There's more here than just numbers in boxes: you need to be able to use deductive reasoning and be able to question everything to create a picture of the real truth and catch people who've deliberately lied and cheated.

If you've bought in to the myth that accounting is nothing more than a lot of paperwork and a calculator, you need to think again. You'll be amazed at all the things you can do as a CPA if you pay close attention. Find out more about the accounting profession and see what a difference getting an accounting degree could make in your life. There's nowhere to go but up!