That calm night, I sat in a hot tub that had a view of the mountainous landscape alongside my friend and his sister. I hoped to merely relax and have a well overdue escape from the “real world.” No homework. No responsibilities. No worries.
That was, until my friend and his sister decided that we weren’t getting out of the hot tub until I decided what I wanted to do in university. Needless to say, we suffered 3rd degree burns and severe dehydration during that cool Canadian summer night.
We later returned to the apartment and consulted my friend’s dad. He was, well, a life-savvy person.
“You know what, if you really want the advancement and the opportunity to get wealthy, business is really the best path,” he said.
He had a point. After all, the basic premise of business is to make the most money possible. I knew that already but I guess I was scared of the bureaucracy, the dullness and the stereotype of working in a meaningless cubicle job 9 to 5 on weekdays.
We then watch business/economics documentaries that really made me, at the very least, consider business enough to do some research on it.
First of all what is business?
Employer – the one who hires people to carry out business
Employee – the one who is hired and carries out business
Self-employed – when you’re both the employer and employee
Investor – this one’s a bit trickier. An investor is someone willing to provide a business with financial resources (investment) with the expectation of a return in the investment.
Business, the undergraduate degree, mostly focuses on the employee side, although it is not difficult to apply the skills learned in a business degree towards other business roles.
The degree is also known as also known as Bachelor of Business Administration, Bachelor of Management, and Bachelor of Commerce. They’re all the same. They have different histories but they fundamentally the same program to employers. Besides, having a designation and eligibility for a designation is often more important to employers than the actual degree itself. This means that a finance major can work as an accountant, provided that they have CPA eligibility. I’ll talk more about designations in this article later on.
Accounting
Employment Prospects: A in 4 years
Courseload: 7.5/10
Definitely the most famous and infamous business major. For some, accounting is almost synonymous to easy money. Others, it’s almost synonymous to selling your soul to make the said money. Other people don’t even know what Accounting is, despite hearing the word a lot. Accounting is about summarizing, analyzing, recording, and reporting financial information in a systemic manner. To simplify that, Accounting is the study of the language of business.
Financial Accounting
There are two types of accounting: financial and management. Financial accounts are created for clients and third party businesses to declare the financial condition regarding a venture, partnership, etc. They are often written by accountants that are employed by the company.
Management Accounting
Management accounts, on the other hand, go to the hands of the managers. They are used to make better judgements in terms of management strategies. Accountants in this field often work as contractors in an accounting firm or are self-employed. This gives some impartiality to their work.
Well, is it a good major? It’s an excellent major. While it offers stability, motivated accountants can also pursue less stable but more versatile careers in consulting, management, or entrepreneurship through an accounting degree. In other words, accounting affords you competence in all four business roles (employee, employer, etc). I would recommend Accounting to anyone who could tolerate math and attention to detail and would like to get into the business world in general.
Finance
Employment Prospects: B in 4 years
Courseload: 8.5/10
Finance is sometimes described as the in between of economics and accounting. It kind of is. Finance majors study investments, taxes, assets & liabilities—basically, money.
Financial Analysis
Finance degrees are direct preparations for work as financial analysts (CFA) or financial planners (CFP). Analysts often look at financial statements made by accountants and are thus in demand as well. Conducting audits (basically verifying financial stuff) and writing financial evaluations are often the bulk of a Financial Analyst’s job.
Financial Planning
Financial planners act as consultants for private individuals or businesses is thus a more enterprising option. Investors at times require planners to help them achieve their goals, whether it is a corporation investing on a venture or an individual investing on his or her future. It’s the planner’s job to communicate with investors and write reports to help sort out their cash flow to meet their goals.
Other Pursuits
Finance majors can also look into investment banking, stock broking, and other pursuits in the market from its skill overlap with Economics. These fields also deal with investments, albeit from a different perspective as a financial planner. An important thing to note it Finance and Economics actually share a big part of their niches. Make sure to consider Economics if you’re thinking about Finance and vice versa.
One detail people seem to often overlook is that finance requires way more math than Accounting. Finance is one of those few pursuits where understanding calculus and other advanced math concepts come really handy.
Information Systems, Entrepreneurship, and different Management concentrations comming up on Part II 🙂
Featured image is here.
