The perfect degree for Aspies: Accounting

Post Reply New Topic

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.

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.

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.

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.

Not for me. My dad is a CPA/MBA though.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you are creative, go for your dreams. But I have not found accounting to be boring or meticilous (unlike school, which is nothing like the real world) because you sit there, by yourself without any social demands, basicaly following procedures and solving problems. None of it is complicated.

accounting is the devil