Bill
In colleges, there are many math majors that you can choose from. However, I am interested in becoming an accountant or anything in the financial area. What prerequisites and requirements would I have to complete before high school ends? I am a junior.
I am interested in math and finance majors.
I would like to help out the government and businesses operate properly.
I have been considering being an accountant for the past 5 years.
I feel that my math performance is average and I might need to perform better for acceptance. #accounting #business-management #career-details #personal-development
4 answers
Joel Lawson
Joel’s Answer
In my experience, accounting does not require the mastery of advanced mathematics but rather an ability to organize and make sense of numbers. For my accounting degree, the only pure math courses required were Pre Calculus and Calculus. In addition, my college offered special versions of these courses that were tailored to business majors. That being said, my accounting major also required a finance course and a couple of business statistics courses. Finally, an accounting major is, of course, heavy in accounting courses and many (though certainly not all) include a decent amount of working with numbers though usually only simple math is required.
I'm not sure if your school offers any accounting courses (my high school did not) but that would be a great way to get an idea of what accounting involves and whether you enjoy it and can see yourself pursuing it at the next level.
Best of luck and please let me know if you have additional questions on accounting as a career. accounting
John Ellis
John’s Answer
This is a hard one to answer because there are so many different ways you can go within the world of "accounting or anything in the financial area." In investing, commercial banking and the securities markets some very high level mathematics is used for analysis, modeling and forecasting. You could use a PhD for jobs in these areas. In general business, and probably accounting, a good undergraduate minor in math is probably all you would need. What you want is to become comfortable with equations, numbers, ratios and statistics and be able to approach problems logically and systematically.
As John mentioned, there are a lot of directions your career could go within finance and accounting. I had a dual major in these two subjects and now work at a professional services firm in the audit practice. If you are leaning towards a business degree (in finance or accounting) the required math courses are actually very minimal, however if you are more interested in a math degree I would assume that extensive/higher-level courses are required.
Laura Nelling
Katie Clark
Katie’s Answer
Rose McGovern
Rose’s Answer
Math is not that important for a career in accounting. You need to be comfortable with basic arithmetic, but business acumen is essential. Even for financial analysis, it isn't that the formulas that are complex or difficult; the challenge is figuring out the proper inputs.