Your career path

[xanis]

High school -> Art school -> Production Artist for big-ass financial company -> UI/UX designer for a small GIS firm

 

[Schfifty Five]

Congrats on breaking into public as an older guy. Most people I know who started public as a second career or later in life weren't able to keep up with the pace or stand being bossed around by 27 year olds.

Yeah, I'll admit, it was somewhat strange knowing that I was 30 and starting my first accounting job. I had senior auditors who were only 24 showing me what to do and stuff. But I just accepted it and moved on and tried to absorb as much as I could. It's been nearly two years since I started working at this firm and I've become a licensed CPA and will be promoted to a senior starting next year.

 

[Schfifty Five]

School-high --> BASc. Civil Eng. --> Clerical temp jobs --> Civil Tech job --> MEng. part-time Civil --> Back to Tech job --> FMLing daily


You can be an accountant with only a master's? Not to mention get into a master's of accounting program with only some community college courses? Damn. I have thought of going back to do a bachelor's in accounting, but it's about $13k/year for 4 years -- time and money are HUGE deterents. In retrospect, I think I'd have been much happier if I went the accounting route from the start.

Yeah, depends on the university you go to, but most master accounting programs I saw only required you to have a 4 yr degree, a couple pre-reqs (financial acct and managerial acct) and some minimum gpa/GMAT score (with more emphasis on the gpa rather than GMAT). The masters program was 36 credit hours for me which I was able to get done in 1.5 years (with a somewhat stupid irrelevant part-time/internship with the school in my last semester).

 

[thegimp03]

You can be an accountant with only a master's? Not to mention get into a master's of accounting program with only some community college courses? Damn. I have thought of going back to do a bachelor's in accounting, but it's about $13k/year for 4 years -- time and money are HUGE deterents. In retrospect, I think I'd have been much happier if I went the accounting route from the start.

Always a need for Accountants... All of the Major-specific Accounting courses were in the last 2 years of college for me. I think I took one accounting and one cost accounting course which were required for business majors in my second year of college.

I only have a B.S. in Accounting, a CPA, and my career started in audit at a Big 4 firm in California. Most of the people I worked with didn't have Masters or MBAs because of the high amount of hours we worked (making part-time classes impossible) and there not being a need if you were an auditor - may want to check that for other states as I know that some require graduate degrees. For tax, I'm pretty sure a Master's in Taxation is required in most places.

 

[Crusty]

HS -> Start Comp Sci degree(2003), 2 summer IT internships(04/05), part time job at a trading firm(04 - 06) -> Start working full time at the trading firm(06 - 11) -> Get a job coding for a high frequency trading firm (spring 11 - present) -> Finally finish my Comp Sci degree(fall 11)

 

[sze5003]

High school to pre med courses, took too many pre med courses at once first year in college and I also stayed in the IT dorms. Got into computers and I enjoyed it, switched to IT and then got an internship with programming , got a side job as a developer while in college, to software engineer now.

Strange path but it worked out.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Elementary school (wanted to be gym teacher) -> middle school (wanted to be programmer) -> high school -> college (BS computer science) -> bounced around a couple of different states/jobs -> enlisted as a computer programmer -> either going to continue programming or attempt to get a masters degree or a different degree that complements programming after I get medically separated.

 

[mikegg]

High School --> office admin --> college(initially EE major) --> college(changed to business major) --> office admin at school library --> IT support part-time at school computer lab --> IT support intern at solar company --> marketing intern --> graduate with Business degree --> marketing agency --> marketing manager (23 years old)

 

[zCypher]

High school -> clueless and aimless time wasted in college -> shitty retail jobs -> shitty call center job -> shitty entry level jobs in preclinical pharma -> various other shitty jobs still wondering wtf ima do -> IBM helpdesk -> tech support with telecom provider -> now working in network support and can see a career path in the network world, working towards ccna and hopefully ccnp. 28 years old. wow, lots of time wasted.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

High School -> Chemistry Major -> Government Scientist -> Government contract operations representative -> patent examiner -> law school -> student associate in large firm -> patent attorney in large firm -> in-house patent counsel -> senior patent attorney in a small firm (current).

And to think I told folks in high school that I was going to be a cook or a cop.

 

[Buttzilla]

HS -> B.A. -> bartender -> dental assistant -> master in biology -> didn't get into dental school -> manufacturing -> marketing -> surgical assistant -> didn't get into dental school again -> manufacturing -> field technician -> training manager -> training lead/PM

 

[jlee]

kid jobs -> Bank -> LE -> Security -> IT -> Waiting for LE again.

 

[mikegg]

High School -> Chemistry Major -> Government Scientist -> Government contract operations representative -> patent examiner -> law school -> student associate in large firm -> patent attorney in large firm -> in-house patent counsel -> senior patent attorney in a small firm (current).

And to think I told folks in high school that I was going to be a cook or a cop.

Pretty impressive to go from chem major to patent attorney. :thumbsup:

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Pretty impressive to go from chem major to patent attorney. :thumbsup:

Thanks. But not sure I can take too much credit. Every U.S. patent attorney has a science degree. Which means that there are roughly 30,000 more people just like me.