Most colleges require 60 semester hours for graduation. If you major in accounting, then at least 30 of those hours have to be earned in accounting courses.
A sample accounting program of a two-year business college follows (be sure to check with your high school counselor or college adviser for current data):
Accounting
- Introductory accounting
- Partnership accounting
- Corporation accounting
- Tax accounting
- Social security and payroll accounting Business math
Office practice (use of machines)
Computer training Business correspondence Business law
Business organization and management Sales
Legal forms
Billing
Mimeographing
Business assignments
Office practices (multi graphing, etc.)
To help their students get training (many companies prefer to hire people with some previous training), many colleges have set up internship programs. In these programs, students (usually juniors or seniors) serve a period of internship with public accounting firms that cooperate with the school in the arrangement. Through these programs, students often acquire experience while they're still in school, and they get acquainted with business environments, people, and practical accounting operations. This experience could very well stimulate your interest in accounting; or it could kill it off. But it gives you the chance to know if it's the field for you before you make a permanent job commitment to it.
While in internship, a student spends only about half his or her time performing work assignments. The other half is spent receiving instruction from senior accountants or school instructors. Firms that work in the internship program are usually glad to have the added help and often offer permanent positions to the students who have done good work.
Some firms set up their own training programs for newly hired, inexperienced accounting employees. Usually, the program consists of instruction by senior accountants, following a standard text, in math, auditing procedures, staff and office practices, taxation, and use of computers and machines. Most graduates of accounting schools and programs have the groundwork in most of these courses; sometimes the company's instructions only modify what the student has already learned to fit into the company needs.
But you really need no experience to begin your study of accounting. Regardless of what you are now doing, if you have the aptitude and ability to learn the accounting skills, you can start some study of accounting now. And it cannot be emphasized enough: any business experience is an asset. That means volunteering, too. You can donate your services to any business (charitable organizations are business, too, remember) and get some on-the-job training that way.
It is very difficult to set up a timetable for the steps from registration in a college to senior partnership in an accounting firm. The first factor affecting such a timetable is how much education you have. In a two-year business college, you will graduate from a junior accounting program in 48 weeks. If you had bookkeeping in high school, you would find this program easy. But this short program may not prepare you for the executive ranks of a CPA program (more about this later). In university or college schools of commerce, you would be required to complete many hours of study before being granted a degree.
The quality and length of period of the on-the-job training is another factor in setting up your timetable. If you will be trained on the job, you can take that into consideration.
Remember: if you have decided that accounting is for you, you can start getting ready for it even though the time of your entering school may be years away.
In summary, here are seven signals that can help you along the path to becoming an accountant:
- Decide if you want accounting as a job or as a career.
- For accounting as a job, a short commercial school course may get you started. For accounting as a career, plan on two to four years of college, at least.
- Take any commercial courses offered in high school.
- Develop an interest in business, business activities, and the people who are in business.
- Observe businesses of all kinds in operation. Volunteer!
- Subscribe to accounting publications and keep up with current news and doings in the professional accounting world.
- Do outside reading.
