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Going back to college to get a 2nd Bachelor's Degree - how does this work? (1 Viewer)

Jason L.

Second Unit
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Jul 12, 1999
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483

For the record - when I say that I mean the job, not studying.

Working 50-60 hours a week for one of the Big 4 and stressed out all of the time with no social life: Not Acceptable
 

Lew Crippen

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I appreciate that you don’t wish to work 50–60 hours a week in a high stress job. But (at least in my experience) I’ve never seen anyone starting out in a new profession that did not need at some time to make an extraordinary commitment in order to get established.

Changing careers, but remaining in one of the professions is not the issue, nor is your willingness to study. But what happens after graduation? Seeking a new job, where you are level with a bunch of fresh, out-to-conquer-the-world grads is difficult at best, and when you land a job, you will be competing against those same, driven grads. True enough you will have experience in the workplace on your side, and that should be enough to give you a considerable advantage, but not so much that you will be able to advance without matching the efforts of your new colleagues.

Of course in the above I assume that you desire to advance, as entry-level salaries will probably not meet the life-style expectations that have risen as you advanced in your last profession.

OTOH, you might consider something completely outside of the white-collar world. Many areas have a shortage of skilled tradesmen, for example. Teaching might also be an option (not perhaps as much free time as you might imagine, as one gets caught up in grading papers and so forth).
 

KurtEP

Supporting Actor
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Oct 3, 2006
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698
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Kurt

Another point to consider. Learn to deal with stress. When I started working, I found myself stressed a lot. Then I simply decided that I was as good as anyone else out there, and if my best wasn't good enough, too bad, I'm not going to worry about it. Stress isn't productive, for the most part and it makes absolutely no sense to be stressed about something you can't control.

For my part, if I can't control it, I work really hard to not worry about it at all (strangely, meditation seem to help develop this skill). If it is something I can control, I give it my all, paying a lot of attention to time management and dividing and conquering. Stay on plan and get it done.

Pay a LOT of attention to working smart before you work hard. I routinely got jobs done up to 20% faster than my peers in accounting because I was extremely computer literate in the areas that I used, and spent hours honing skills that I could use to cut back time (things like advanced spreadsheets and programs that could extract data from raw files). Few others bothered. I was always ahead of them.

Don't be afraid to speak up if you have more work than you can do. You normally have to establish a reputation of getting things done before you can get away with this, but I was never afraid to tell someone that I wouldn't be able to get their pet project done unless they could remove something else from my plate. Unless your boss is an idiot, he'll probably understand (although sometimes stuff has to get done regardless).

Edit: Oh, and know your work. You can't imagine how many people I used to deal with who worked the same job for decades and still didn't understand how it really worked. Makes your like easier if you make some effort to be competent.
 

Jason L.

Second Unit
Joined
Jul 12, 1999
Messages
483
I saw this article in the Dallas Morning News and it is another item I see that confuses me about the long term outlook for the accounting/finance field. I either see articles that read:

1. Accounting/Finance jobs are being outsourced to India/Phillipines and it is a terrible field to enter.
2. Accounting/Finance jobs are plentiful and new graduates are in demand. It is a great field to enter.

Can someone give some insight to this?

The Article:

Coke bottler laying off nearly 80 Dallas finance workers

11:09 PM CDT on Friday, July 11, 2008

By KAREN ROBINSON-JACOBS / The Dallas Morning News
krobinson@dallasnews

Nearly 80 workers in the Dallas office of soda bottler Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. will probably see their jobs shipped overseas at year's end, the company said Friday.

The Atlanta-based company, the world's largest distributor of Coke products, has about 1,600 workers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

They handle everything from sales to soda production. The positions earmarked for outsourcing are in the finance department.

On Thursday, workers were told the company has reached an "agreement in principle" with the Paris-based Capgemini outsourcing firm to take over about 300 financial services jobs companywide, in areas such as accounts payable and accounts receivable.

If Coca-Cola Enterprises seals the deal, Capgemini will decide where the jobs go – possibly to Guatemala or India, Coca-Cola Enterprises spokesman Fred Roselli said Friday.

"We had a meeting with employees to let them know we intend to outsource" 78 finance department jobs from the Dallas office, he said.

An additional 150 jobs could be lost in the Tampa, Fla., area and 70 workers could be furloughed in Toronto, the company said.

Employees were told in May that the bottler was looking for ways to improve efficiency. This week's news was the response to that search.

The bottler, which saw its stock downgraded this week by an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus to hold from buy, turned to Capgemini to "standardize and streamline" operations, said another Coca-Cola Enterprises spokesman, David Sords.

Reducing salary and benefit costs was not part of the motivation, he said.

"We've got six different business units around the country," Mr. Sords said. "You've got six different procedures out there. We looked at everything we could, and we felt this was the best way."

One Dallas worker whose job would be eliminated said employees were stung by the news because after the May announcement, "we just worked our [behinds] off for them to show 'this is what you're getting with us.' "

"You just held out hope," said the worker, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.

Mr. Sords said layoffs could come as soon as October and continue into early next year.
 

Lew Crippen

Senior HTF Member
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Interesting—I’m not sure of the outlook for any field, but I’d hazard a guess that in the auditing subset of accounting and finance, offsite outsourcing is some way away.

As a bit of black humor, one wonders why an employee who is being laid off is afraid of reprisals.
 

KurtEP

Supporting Actor
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Oct 3, 2006
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Kurt

Yeah, an audit that didn't involve visiting the location and kicking the tires would be pretty much malpractice, as far as I'm concerned. On the other hand, it would be fairly simple to outsource some of the routine tasks for a company. Of course, that doesn't make it a good idea, but some people will do it anyway.
 

Greg_R

Screenwriter
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Get an MBA and take some accounting classes as part of your degree. MBAs with a strong technical background (engineering, IT, software, etc.) are in high demand.
 

henryEb

Auditioning
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Feb 20, 2010
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henryEb
1. go to somewhere like excelsior college and have them accept ALL the credits now before too many years go by and they become worthless. Also if you were actually granted the 4 year degree already, the golden door of free federal dollars seems to close forever.
2. Go to a private college and load up on all the financial aid you will still be elligable for because you never actually got the piece of paper in the first place. Have them accept 50% or the max that they can to further cut down on costs. Concentrate on something academically different in the private college.
3. Graduate with TWO degrees in a few years instead of just one degree for around the same $ as your first plan.

_________________________________________________________
Online Bachelor Degree
 

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