I am quite exceptional at math and would love to find a profession that allows me to exercise it, but it didn’t take long to run into students who were unhappy with the relationship between math and accounting. I guess they thought, like the myth says, that it was math only. I’m more concerned with the level of math that I’ll get to use. A lot of it is just adding and subtracting, but I do remember one course that taught various equations to pull out numerical statistics from across the financial report. That is exactly what I was looking for.

As for myth 7, I’ve never had the delusion that I’d learn nothing in college about accounting (in fact my first course was a bit difficult), but I do find myself wondering exactly how prepared I’ll be. More importantly, if I were to be hired to do a company’s accounting on my own, how horribly I might fail.

On another note, I found your blog just a little while ago and I’m enjoying it. I’m especially interested in the CPA exam parts because even though it’s far off for me, it all seems to be quite a mess. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Of course you can argue, “well I’ll never be on that kind of job,” or “the chances are slim.”

Whatever – the point of an education is to teach you more about the world. To give you culture and understanding, not just to grab a paycheque every two weeks.

If all you care about is getting some big bucks, drop out now and become a roughneck on an oil rig – they make fantastic money and in the off-hours, as long as you can slug back beers and watch the game, you’ll fit right in.

Keep up the good work!