Impressed Uni funding

Calaen

I am a massive cock who isn't firing atm!
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Good luck Gohan! Whatever you end up with or doing. Just make sure you stick at it and work hard, the year out will be the most important part for you. Don't settle for any old placement, start looking straight away and contacting the best places well in advance so they know you're keen and interested.

People will always say no one looks at the level of the degree, but it does help. If only to get you an interview over a like for like applicant who has a lower level degree. The rest is down to the interview!
 

Garaen

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How many UCAS points do you have? Keep in mind that for any decent graduate job these days you need at least 300 UCAS points and a 2:1 before they even read your application.
 

Ormorof

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or you could just study in Finland for free like im doing... :p

that said if you are good then you will always be in demand, the trick is to convince the company you are good in the first place ;)
 

DaGaffer

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Accountancy firms actually seem to go for people who HAVEN'T done accounting at Uni......

Like I said, for the big 4 its all about the Uni you went to, not your course. Its always been like that. When I was graduating (in the early 90s recession - nothing like as bad as this one), all the folks who did accountancy (I shared my first year with them) struggled to get chartered jobs; (usually it was through knowing someone), because the big 4 were more likely to take someone who did say, economics at UMIST, than Accountancy at Salford (despite it being a very reputable course at the time). ACCA is a bit different; there are a lot more openings for certified.

I'm not yooooth

I'll be 29 by the time I leave uni,

Which just makes it harder for you sadly. I was 26 when I finished my first degree and immediately did a masters to differentiate myself because I was considered by lots of milkround recruiters to be less "mould-able" into a role than some 21 year old who'd done nowt. Accountancy firms are notoriously small-'c' conservative about "unusual" applicants, and you would fall into that category.
 

Vae

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DaGaffers right that the Uni matters far more than the degree as long as you get a 2:1 or higher.

Tbh the best piece of advice I received and the main piece of advice that I'd pass on regarding accounting degrees is just don't. Once you're qualified, half of your time, as an ACA, will be talking and working with clients. If you have a wider breadth of knowledge and experience to draw upon then you are more capable of relating to clients, getting on their wavelength and them putting trust in you.

It's been 11 years since I started my ACA training so I've had to look up the current study structure. The professional stage is 6 knowledge exams (1.5 Hours Computer assessed exams sat at your employers) and 6 application exams (2.5 hours in proper exam conditions). With the right modules Accounting & Finance at Southhampton gives you exemptions from 5 of the 6 Knowledge exams. It sounds like a lot but you'll have spent 3 years getting that degree which only then saves you from 7.5 hours of computer assessed exams which aren't that difficult! As a potential employer I would look upon someone with an accounting degree as having a very narrow focus which would count against them. In practice I've actually hired people off the shop floor who have a a bit of intelligence and common sense. I'm not looking for trained accountants or AAT's to work in my (small) finance department since I can teach people to be book-keepers and then develop them into a bit more than that. I can't teach common sense (and it's a commodity which is scarily lacking)!

The Application exams are the ones that will actually be difficult and the Advanced stage (2x 3.5 Hr exams and a 4 Hr case study) is where you are more likely to struggle because it reduces the emphasis on whether you can do calculations or know particular things and instead assesses how well you can integrate and apply your knowledge to scenarios and situations.

In case you're considering ACCA then my estimation would be that the 2 qualifications are broadly equal but ACA trains you to be more of a big picture Accountant offering business and commercial advice etc whereas ACCA trains you to be more technical so you end up better at the actual accounting skills and knowledge. The majority of FTSE 100 CFO's will be ACA. CIMA is generally if you train in a large company (e.g. BP, IBM etc) and Yoni can add better advice about that than me.

In terms of starting salary when I started the top 5 (now 4) were paying probably 21k ish. Now I would guess that it has risen but I would be surprised if it has reached 30k becuase they have to fund your study and also lose a certain amount of your time to study leave.
 

Yoni

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I did CIMA and should really finish my logs soon to get my letters....

Advice, don't do accountancy at uni and certainly don't expect to earn 30k after leaving uni.

Before you go down the route of accountancy please ask yourself why you want to be an accountant, and in doing so you will also (hopefully) establish what kind of accountant you want to be.

Do you want to be a technical accountant, if so ACA or ACCA are for you. If you want to be a commercial accountant then CIMA or ACCA is the ticket.

You can do ACA and move into the commercial world, however, from what I have experienced the transition isn't always smooth and I have seen many a good technical accountant fail. However if you want to audit then I wouldn't recommend CIMA for the same reason.

Due to the route to a professional accountancy qualification without the necessity for a degree (CAT or AAT followed by CIMA or ACCA) the market is highly competitive and starting salaries lower than they used to be. 4 years ago when I left the UK I could get a good trainee accountant for 18k per year with a 2.1 and no experience or an AAT or CAT qualified starting their professionals for 20k and 2 - 3 years experience.

The other thing you have against you is your age, because you are nearly 30 your salary expectations are potentially higher than a grad of normal age, so you maybe competing there as well.

Having said all that, I didn't get a degree, I took years and years to qualify, however I worked hard, took all the opportunities thrown at me and my career took off quickly, but late. I now get to travel all over Europe implementing financial strategies in organisions, within the group, who have had poor finance people historically. I troubleshoot their financial problems, everything from inconsistent reporting to system implementation, psychologist to the MD and bring finance down to earth so it can be understood by everyone. I get paid a nice sum too, but when I started working in finance 20 years ago my starting salary was 9k pa!

The biggest piece of advise I can give you is, get your foot in the door, get that all important experience and then worry about salary, if you do that you will be fine, in the long run.
 

Aoami

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Tell me more about these ACA's. I'm looking for a career as I don't want to be a chef for the rest of my life. I have a good head for statistics, figures and analysis. Where is a good place to start doing a bit of reading?
 

gohan

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problem with ACA CIMA or ACCA is there's no funding for them, so you either need to get a job in a firm that's willing to pay for your training or self fund your learning at about 15-20k :< looked into it before deciding to go to uni
 

Vae

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I went the route of ACA in an accounting firm, moving into 'Industry', as it is termed, as Head of Finance & IT for the UK & Irish subsidiaries of an international retail company so I've seen more of the 'practice' (i.e. accounting side) side of things and Yoni's had the experience of working in the commercial side all along so you've kind of got views and experiences from both sides here.

One thing I meant to say is that if you do do an Accounting degree you won't qualify any faster than people with other degrees because you still need to get 3 years work experience anyway!

Aoami - You can look at the various institute websites to get a bit of an idea about their qualifications and focus but I'd probably recommend actually talking to an accountant about their day-to-day work to see if it's something that interests or not. It's certainly not for everyone. At the basic end you can be little more than a glorified book-keeper or data-entry clerk. At the other end you get to provide reports and advice and see it acted upon, or even be part of making the decisions for a company which I find far more interesting.
http://uk.accaglobal.com/
http://www.icaew.com/
http://www.cimaglobal.com/Our-locations/UK/
http://www.aat.org.uk/ (This is the Association of Accounting Technicians (see also CAT) which are basically book-keepers. It can be an alternative career path into Accounting instead of a degree as Yoni mentions).

Yoni's also right about being a psycologist to the MD. I had to do so with our French MD for a year or so until we recruited a permanent Head of Finance for France. Part of the job is being the rational, logical person that they can lean on and trust for advice. Sometimes it involves steering them in the right (normally more prudent) direction and other times it's helping them back up their plans and decisions. You can be a sounding board and source of sound commercial advice so you've got to have a certian amount of people skills to be able to do that role.
 

Raven

Happy Shopper Ray Mears
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It was at the end of my first year of CIMA that I decided pure accountancy would rape my soul. I now earn a lot less than I would do if I had finished it but "enjoy" my work a bit more.

Frustratingly I am probably a better accountant than our company accountant and end up tidying up after him half the time and sometimes I regret my choice of binning it but that's life.
 

Moriath

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heh i started on 16k +comp after uni

Took me a year to jump to 28k when i got luck and i mean lucky

In IT not accountancy .. but that sort of money is dream boat unless you get a 1st and get picked up by the big guns as a very bright boy and thats not just on a 1st thats on 1st plus lots of interviews against shit loads of ppl ..

So you have to be real lucky to get that money ..

imo

esp in this times with shed loads of youth unemployed and coming out of uni looking for degrees.

And its still 28k you have to pay back so when it comes to getting a mortgage that 28k will be taken to account so the house you can afford will be shit .. 30k say salary x 3 would be 90k and they need at least 10% more like 20 to get a decent rate.. so you are looking at saving 20k to get a 110k mortgage ... which wont get you dick in london and in the suburbes just a bedsite or 1 bed flat in a crap area.

Its not all swings there are a lot of round a bouts too
 

Yoni

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Raven said:
It was at the end of my first year of CIMA that I decided pure accountancy would rape my soul. I now earn a lot less than I would do if I had finished it but "enjoy" my work a bit more.

Frustratingly I am probably a better accountant than our company accountant and end up tidying up after him half the time and sometimes I regret my choice of binning it but that's life.

I used to be you and became utterly fucked off with my superiors incompetence, so I went back and finished..... Consider restarting, I promise it really will pay off .
 

Yoni

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Aoami said:
Tell me more about these ACA's. I'm looking for a career as I don't want to be a chef for the rest of my life. I have a good head for statistics, figures and analysis. Where is a good place to start doing a bit of reading?

Aoami, where do you live? I thought in Denmark?
 

Exioce

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I agree with OP that the financial burden is pretty light. The loan is easily repayable and barely affects your future earnings at all, in fact it is hardly noticeable.
This is not the common view however, and university attendance among the working class has fallen this year. The posters above might suggest that this is a good thing, but it really isn't.
 

SilverHood

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I agree with OP that the financial burden is pretty light. The loan is easily repayable and barely affects your future earnings at all, in fact it is hardly noticeable.
This is not the common view however, and university attendance among the working class has fallen this year. The posters above might suggest that this is a good thing, but it really isn't.

9% is a lot of money when things are tight. It doesn't take into account your circumstances - it is a flat rate levied in the same way as NI and income tax. As such, you usually never see the money hitting your bank account, but you see it on your payslip. If you are in London / South East where everything is expensive, you definitely feel it. Up north, paying half the rent, maybe not so much. For my four year honours degree today, I'd be pushing 45-50k in loans / fees. That's not something you easily pay off. The interest alone will be more than you pay off unless you earn over 30k, which for a lot of people won't be well into their 30's, if ever. At which point you have to seriously evaluate the worth of the degree compared future earnings.
 

gohan

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it's 9% OVER 21k tho, so if you earn 21,100 for example, you pay £9 a year back, or 75p a month.......


like wise if you're earning 50k its 9% on 29k which is stil only like 2610 a year or £217.50 a month ish
 

Moriath

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but its still debt against your name and will be taken into account on any other loads / mortgages yiou want after you finish and do you still want to be paying it back when you are 40 heh
 

gohan

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well not really, I want it for free...... but as that's not an option the way it's set up is pretty manageable. As I said, no real risk I either earn more than I did before or I don't pay it back lol

It's a bit diff for me cause I don't live at home, haven't for like 4 years, been working full time more or less since I was 16, never earnt more than 17k per year so at 25 it's not like I had that much to lose, it's a bit of a gamble leaving my safe, comfortable job last year, but I fucking hated that job so I think it's well worth the minimal risk of being unemployed after uni (which won't happen to me because I'm not the type of person to ever be without a job)
 

rynnor

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Is there anything to stop people taking out 50k loans then emigrating and never paying it back?
 

Himse

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Is there anything to stop people taking out 50k loans then emigrating and never paying it back?
I agree with OP that the financial burden is pretty light. The loan is easily repayable and barely affects your future earnings at all, in fact it is hardly noticeable.
This is not the common view however, and university attendance among the working class has fallen this year. The posters above might suggest that this is a good thing, but it really isn't.

Depends really, it's lower because people have stopped taking BS degrees.

(It's my opinion) But why would people even consider taking a student just out of uni with a 'media' degree in a non media field?

Alot of students believe because they have a degree, they are entitled to any job at a high rate of pay. Unfortunately not the case?

Not to shit on people who do media, but far too many people do degrees that are so field specific (digital film production, david beckhams life) and then wonder why they aren't currently employed, personally to me it's a good thing that they hiked the fee's, if your degree is worth it, it's worth paying. Stop's kids going for 3 years of alcohol (as tempting as it is).
 

SilverHood

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Is there anything to stop people taking out 50k loans then emigrating and never paying it back?

They do attempt to chase people down. I'd been in the US for maybe a year when I got a letter saying "our records from HMRC indicate you have left the country. Please fill in the assessment form attached so we can work out how much you should be paying, etc". I make an online payment each month. However, I know plenty of people who have zero intention of ever returning to the UK for work purposes, and they've just written it off.
 

gohan

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Update. Having heard what all the accountants on here have said, and having spoke to tutors at college etc I've changed my course.

Still at Southampton Uni (which works out really well as they are currently 6th in the leagues tables for the subject) doing a 4 year MChem masters degree.

Probably have more chance of becoming an accountant with a Chem degree anyway, especially a Masters, but also gives me more options if it doesn't work out. Your advice doesn't ALWAYS fall on deaf ears :) thanks for profesional opinions.
 

Job

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30K in London must be minimum wage surely, you couldn't buy a photograph of a house for that down there.
The grads at BT start on 20k and are the middle management slaves for three years, then they move to London to get a post and realise they were better off on 20K in Liverpool than 35k in London.
To get his on context the secretaries were on 28K sat next to them.
 

SilverHood

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30K in London must be minimum wage surely, you couldn't buy a photograph of a house for that down there.
The grads at BT start on 20k and are the middle management slaves for three years, then they move to London to get a post and realise they were better off on 20K in Liverpool than 35k in London.
To get his on context the secretaries were on 28K sat next to them.

Starting pay for grad company I joined was around 21k for first year, 25k second year, regardless of location. Since most of their work was in London, you had to live somewhere cheap with other people, or do a commute from outside London from somewhere with cheap rent. You eat pasta and sauce for dinner every night and manage your finances carefully. Not a very fun or glamorous lifestyle, but at least there's light at the end of the tunnel and it was worth it in the end.
 

eksdee

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Love the hyperbole about how expensive London is. I earn 23.5k atm, my gf 20k and after paying our bills each month we have more than half of our wages left over to do wtf we want with.
 

Chilly

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Update. Having heard what all the accountants on here have said, and having spoke to tutors at college etc I've changed my course.

Still at Southampton Uni (which works out really well as they are currently 6th in the leagues tables for the subject) doing a 4 year MChem masters degree.

Probably have more chance of becoming an accountant with a Chem degree anyway, especially a Masters, but also gives me more options if it doesn't work out. Your advice doesn't ALWAYS fall on deaf ears :) thanks for profesional opinions.

You're doing a masters in chemistry? I hope you're hardcore because that's one of the hardest degrees going.
 

rynnor

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You're doing a masters in chemistry? I hope you're hardcore because that's one of the hardest degrees going.

Nah - Engineering/Physics are the worst - Chemistry had a lot of hours doing practicals but wasnt too bad theorywise. Saw lots of bright kids fail the first year in Electrical Engineering and the hours were insane.
 

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