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duncvis
Stroppy Get
Joined: Sep 11, 2004
Posts: 2286
Location: the dark side of the net
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 Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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Yep. Good numeric reasoning is far more important than higher math knowledge. Most accounting calculations which require greater than arithmetic knowledge are based around a number of standard equations, with a bit of differential calculus. If you can get the method down the theory isn't relevant.  |
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Sarcastic_Name
Seasoned Happy Person
Joined: Mar 27, 2005
Age: 21
Posts: 3593
Location: Jax,FL,USA
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| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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I probably could be an accountant. But I really can't stand something as boring and meticilous. I'm more of the performing/creating artsy type of person, but I do excel at Algebra and number crunching.
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Happy, in love, and back. Don't know for how long, but I'm feeling nostalgic and wiser. |
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hale_bopp
All Kinds of Freak
Joined: Nov 03, 2004
Age: 24
Posts: 7126
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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Accounting stinks. I think that you should say "suitible for SOME people with AS" not "suitable for people with AS."
I couldn't be an accountant if someone hit me in the face with tax returns. |
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techstepgenr8tion
that chatty American
Joined: Feb 07, 2005
Age: 30
Posts: 7167
Location: The fine world of insomnia and coffee
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| Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Sarcastic_Name wrote: | | I probably could be an accountant. But I really can't stand something as boring and meticilous. I'm more of the performing/creating artsy type of person, but I do excel at Algebra and number crunching. |
Well, it depends on what your doing and what your attitude is toward it. I used to think exactly like that myself but to tell the truth when I started reading up on the COSO and Cobit sites the kinds of stuff they had fascinated me. Auditing especially is about diving in to internal controls in companies (ie. the processes information passes through that act as natural checks against fraud, mistakes, etc.) and doing substantive tests with transactions to follow everything through the main 7 transaction cycles to make sure it checks out all the way through the process.
Then again, I'm the kind of guy where even though I am an artsy and musical guy myself a bit I have found it fascinating when my friend's dad talks about his family's farm land and how the IRS breaks down the tax per acre of crop, how bufferzones work in terms of taxes, etc. - it gets that sort of acid-soaked part of my visual thinking seeing the world in completely new and fascinating ways on some level (almost like that feeling you get when they're talking about some real deep and complex stuff or agency relationships in movies like the Matrix, some Japanimaes, I get a real thrill off real cerebral stuff like that - almost the kind of thrill some people get off the balance of extreme sports). The whole accounting system as well as most of finance and how it quantifies reality is just fascinating like that because again, there's that certain part of my mind that likes to draw up these ultra-intense landscapes or visuals of relationships between pieces and parts. |
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KingdomOfRats
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 01, 2005
Age: 25
Posts: 3583
Location: Manchester
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 1:29 am Post subject: |
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| hale_bopp wrote: | Accounting stinks. I think that you should say "suitible for SOME people with AS" not "suitable for people with AS."
I couldn't be an accountant if someone hit me in the face with tax returns. |
Agreed!!!
We're not all interested in math type jobs.
I have great difficulty with the most basic of maths and would find accounting; torture.
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..::moderate & severe autism support:..
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techstepgenr8tion
that chatty American
Joined: Feb 07, 2005
Age: 30
Posts: 7167
Location: The fine world of insomnia and coffee
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:05 am Post subject: |
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| KingdomOfRats wrote: | | hale_bopp wrote: | Accounting stinks. I think that you should say "suitible for SOME people with AS" not "suitable for people with AS."
I couldn't be an accountant if someone hit me in the face with tax returns. |
Agreed!!!
We're not all interested in math type jobs.
I have great difficulty with the most basic of maths and would find accounting; torture. |
I don't think anyone said all of us were, just that those who are and aren't computer or science types have a profitable place that can, at least in industry, be somewhat aspie friendly. |
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joku_muko
Phoenix
Joined: Dec 10, 2004
Posts: 546
Location: Oregon
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 2:15 am Post subject: |
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| Not for me. My dad is a CPA/MBA though. |
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ridgerider
Deinonychus
Joined: Nov 11, 2005
Posts: 303
Location: outside looking in
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| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 11:14 am Post subject: |
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Double entry accounting, so logical. It all has to balance. Love it. Got accounting job, bought a textbook and learned it on the fly, tho ended up in charge of other people but was already a little older so could fake normal interactions and since it was all so objective discussions were easier. First started with Televideo computer running CPM, then the Lisa, so tho am still only an enduser I could pick up the computing stuff relatively easy back then and in land of blind, one eyed man is king. Lost one job when boss swore and yelled at me and I asked for an apology and he said "F--- You" so I didn't know proper response so picked up my chair and threw it at his head. Lost that job.
Had some other accounting jobs tho, when I couldn't do other things, but long term career goals have never really been that important to me so would move on when bored.
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danlo
Phoenix
Joined: Mar 12, 2005
Posts: 1069
Location: Western Australia
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:27 am Post subject: |
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| HugoBlack wrote: | | The good thing about accounting is that it is very easy. If you are going to get a degree, you are going to have to slog through the subject matter one way or the other. But the concepts in accounting are all as simple as possible and often common sense based. Even the math isn't that bad, as it is all only adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying. |
That's my point, HugoBlack. If you simply can't explain even those simple concepts, then it's disaster waiting to happen. You won't finish the degree, even though you can do the accounting side of it. You do have to slog through the subject matter to get the degree, which is why I'll never get one. |
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HugoBlack
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Jul 27, 2005
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:35 pm Post subject: Re: The perfect degree for Aspies: Accounting |
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| techstepgenr8tion wrote: |
The only thing I'm hearing that may be a little bit of trouble for some people is that the ammount of jobs in the accounting field available where people can just work in the office and scorekeep are going down bit by bit. Being a tax accountant may work at that rate but if I were a tax accountant right now I'd be a little worried about my future (with all the new IRS overhauls planned and what not - I don't know if these extend to corporate taxes but they may be saying good bye to the old 1040's one of these days).
I've gotta ask you though, being that your going for your masters, is the stuff your learning right now just a second run of the undergrad? I keep hearing from everyone I'm in school with right now that the MBA classes are all the same as the undergrad, some MBA students have been in some of my classes (I had a girl in my information systems class who took it as a 500's level and the only difference was she had to give a presentation). Yeah, people need 150 credits to take the CPA exam in my state and most people who do go for their MBA do it for that reason; I however already have an extra 24 credits above my 129 as dead transfer credits from a community college - as far as I know those should still work providing that I have indeed taken enough accounting electives. |
Tax accounting is (relative for accounting) a small field. Only 35% of the business of public accounting firms is tax (the other 65% is audit) and most companies don't have very extensive in house tax abilities. Most accounting is corporate accounting: general leger, reconciliations, financial reporting, financial analysis, SEC reporting ect. In my corporate accounting job, all I do is reconciliations (manipulating on a spreed sheet large volumes of data). It is great, because often with these, if it balances to zero, you know you are right. If it doesn't, you know you are wrong. The training is very extensive, and there are almost no social requirments. Here they don't even let you do anything on your own until you have gone through a couple months of training. Someone today who worked in public accounting for 4 years told me that I wouldn't make it in public accounting because I am "too nice." He said it is a very cutthroat environment.
I was not a business undergrad, so my MS classes were nothing like my undergrad classes. But yes, in general graduate level accounting classes are not much different than undergrad accounting classes. Most of my classes used the same textbook, professor, notes and lectures (as well as tests) as the undergrad classes. Word for the wise, MBAs are useless. Most don't get them for CPA requirments. Usually people get MS degrees in accounting for their CPA requirments. Some were accounting undergrads and don't need another accounting degree per se, but it is a common choice even among them. Last week I was trying to talk someone out of getting an MBA. The week before that someone else was telling me what a mistake it was for them to get their MBA in the first place. |
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HugoBlack
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Jul 27, 2005
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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| NeantHumain wrote: | For me at least, accounting isn't the best career option. I dislike doing calculations, and I tend to make small mistakes occasionally when I do. I do agree, though, that at least many aspects of an accountant's job duties are probably more suited for people who have Asperger's syndrome than many other jobs are.
Some other common choices people with Asperger's syndrome make are these:
- Computer programmer
- Software engineer
- Systems analyst
- Database administrator/analyst
- Network/server administrator
- Physicist
- Astronomer
- Chemist
- Professor at a university
- Industrial engineer
- Civil engineer
- Mathematician
- Philosopher
- Carpenter
- Sculptor
- Painter
Actually, there is a surprising diversity of career paths people with AS have successfully chosen. If people with Asperger's learn their talents and limitations, they can work to compensate for what they lack and cut the path that fits them, even if it may be more challenging than it would be for a NeuroTypical (NT). |
There is not much demand for philosphers, sculptors, physicists or professors. And in reality, even if you are, say a professor, you still can make bad mistakes very easily. Often you have to worry about being denied tenure (it happens all the time). In accounting there is a lot of demand. The benefit of accounting is that the time it takes to enter the field is limited (4 years in college is all you need, vs 10-15 years for a professor). The degree is very easy. Retaining a coproate accounting job in a big company (where most of the accounting jobs are) is relatively easy, because as long as you balance everything to zero in a reasonable period of time, thats all they care about. As a professor, you have to publish and thus have to do very good research (which is a big problem for anyone, AS or not). Plus mistakes are not a problem (outside of auditing and public accounting) because it is very objective. If the numbers you ran balance to zero, you are absolutely positive you are right. If it doesn't balance, you know you are wrong. |
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HugoBlack
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Jul 27, 2005
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:47 pm Post subject: |
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| chamoisee wrote: | I've actually considered accounting. Don't you have to have really good math skils? I have tried for years to comprehend algebra, unsuccessfully.  |
There is no advanced math in accounting. There is no calculus, trig, and almost no algebra. It is about 99.9% adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. And almost all the math is done by computers. It is difficult adding up 50,000 different numbers, so the computer does it. You really cannot go wrong with accounting. It is perfect for people like us. |
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HugoBlack
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Jul 27, 2005
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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| chamoisee wrote: | | I've actually considered accounting. Don't you have to have really good math skils? I have tried for years to comprehend algebra, unsuccessfully. |
There is no calculus, trig, and almost no algebra in accounting. 99.9% of the math is adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. And almost all of the math is done by computers. It isn't possible to add 50,000 numbers by hand, so the computer does it. And when you add 50,000 different numbers and you get exactly the same number as the report you are looking at says you should have gotten, you know you are right. Accounting is the perfect fit for someone like us. |
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HugoBlack
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Jul 27, 2005
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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| techstepgenr8tion wrote: | | chamoisee wrote: | | I've actually considered accounting. Don't you have to have really good math skils? I have tried for years to comprehend algebra, unsuccessfully. |
Depends. What you need is good numeric reasoning, good basic math, and you have to understand a lot of the basic finance equasions at least well enough (ie. mostly business-math). |
You don't need to know any finance equations in accounting. The most complex it gets is a simple ratio like profits divided into sales. It doesn't get more complicated than that. |
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HugoBlack
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Jul 27, 2005
Posts: 57
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| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| duncvis wrote: | | Yep. Good numeric reasoning is far more important than higher math knowledge. Most accounting calculations which require greater than arithmetic knowledge are based around a number of standard equations, with a bit of differential calculus. If you can get the method down the theory isn't relevant. |
Yes. Sometimes there are certain statistical calculations, but you don't need to know how any of them work, because you just tell the computer what calculation you want done and it does it. |
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