Frog Legs

Since January 2007 I have been in school pursuing the education I need to shift into a career in accounting. Since my goal is to be an accountant, it was a requirement for the CPA exam I take all the undergraduate accounting courses (and some other various business courses). Additionally, I decided to pursue a Masters of Accountancy as I felt having a degree in the field would be beneficial so I also have taken (and am still taking) the graduate-level courses required for this advanced degree.

During this time, my grades have been good. All the classes I have taken since January of 2007 can be categorized into either undergraduate or graduate level. At the undergraduate level my gpa since I started this process is about 3.9. At the graduate level, with two classes remaining, my gpa is 4.0.

This has been a lot of work, I’m not sure I can overstate how involved the whole process has been. The education by itself wasn’t so bad, but combining with a 40 or more hour work-week and the pace at which I was taking courses, my life for the last two and a half years has mostly consisted of studying, working and sleeping. This past spring I took 4 graduate courses (12 hours). Nine hours is normally considered “full time” in graduate school. I also took 4 classes the previous fall and 3 classes in the summer before that. I tend to understate my achievements. However in this case, I am very proud to have completed all that with such excellent grades.

So now the fruits of my labor are starting to become tangible. One of the local accounting firms is scheduling interviews in September. I was notified by email from the head of the accounting department and signed up to participate. Starting in approximately a few weeks I will seriously begin job hunting, so this interview session comes at an appropriate time.

I’m not sure what the future holds. In addition to the Master’s degree, I have a large (both deep and wide) knowledge base in the area of information technology. I believe this could be very valuable to either a small or large firm. Additionally I believe I have a lot of potential in the area of IT auditing and/or IT governance in general. Clearly my knowledge base (including a CISSP security certification) would serve me well in that area.

So what does the future hold? I don’t know but I am excited to find out!

So far I have taken 3 of the 4 CPA exams. I passed two of them, FAR and BEC. The third, AUD, I have not received results for, but I feel ok about the test. Not great, but I think there is a reasonable chance I passed it.

I am scheduled to take the 4th exam in six days, this coming Saturday. I think I should do ok and pass the test. After that, I won’t have anything to study at all for a few weeks until school starts again.

For study materials I chose to use Gleim. I reviewed a number of them and felt Gleim to be the best option for me. My main criteria was a study system which would provide plenty of tools for self-study. I did not want to take any classes. Gleim offers self-test software, books, an online learning system and audio lectures. There was another company who I was also leaning toward for self-study (don’t recall the name right away) but I chose Gleim because the other company didn’t publish their own books, Gliem does. Finally, Gleim was competitive on price, an important point for me.

So far of the results I have received, I passed 2/2 tests. I feel the Gleim books have been very representative of the three tests I have taken (recall: I have taken 3 but only received two results so far).

So for anyone else looking for a good self-study course, I highly recommend using Gleim whether you buy the books only or the other tools they offer.