| Topic Name: |
Majors |
| Message Name: |
Thank you |
| Date Posted: |
03/03/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
First, in principle, acctg is fine. It requires some analytical skill & tends to correlate with numeracy & some business savvy.
And, the founder of modern management consulting, J O McKinsey was an accountant & indeed accounting professor.
So, in principle, acctg is surely ok.
===
On the other hand, it depends on what you mean by "consulting."
If by consulting you mean "strategy" consulting as practiced by McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Booz-Allen & even Accenture's strat group ... acctg is fine in principle, but there is a hitch.
In particular, accounting tends to be taught at state schools (quite good ones to be sure, but still state schools) & second / third tier institutions, and is less prevalent at top schools such as Harvard.
If you are in acctg at a top school like Penn (Wharton), a top state school like Berkeley, etc. ... then, strategy consulting firms will recruit on your campus & you will have the same shot as everyone else, assuming you have top grades. However, if you are in acctg at, say, U Iowa, most of the strategy firms will not recruit there & you will not have a really good shot.
In any event, the issue is more your school & whether the strategy firms come to your campus at all, than your major ... acctg is ok, but so are econ, finance, math, hard sciences ... so long as the strat firms recruit at your univ.
===
Now, if by "consulting," yoiu are including some of the IT systems integration firms like the Big 5 accountancies, EDS, Accenture's general practice ... many will recruit accounting students for generalist positions. It's probably tougher this year than in the past ... my guess is that the firms would tend to look for CS, math & other grads with pre-existing programming skills ... but, in the past ... in "normal" demand years, these firms would have taken undergrads from many areas, so long as they have some analytical talent & numeracy and they would train them. Accenture, in particular, is well known for turning middling undergrads in a variety of majors from a variety of schools, into decent project managers & programmers.
===
By the way, any predictions from the past are suspect this year ...
|
| Message: |
I goto FSU, all the big 5 accounting firms visit there for career fairs, but i dont think their consulting arms do. can u get into a top 10 mba program with accounting big 5 experience? that may be my only chance to get a job with consulting/ibanking down the road, although my age my not be in my favor, i will be 27 when i finish with a bs.
|
|
