My friend went to SMU and did finance and econ. He got a job with an accounting firm and will make nearly 80 grand after his first year, including overtime and bonuses.
Rice does have a new undergrad minor in business, and it does have a strong econ and sport management program too.
I wouldn't be too concerned about salary 'straight out of school.' I'd be more interested in earning potential (if that's your thing) 5 or 10 years out. On a somewhat related note -- those of you who have gone back for MBA's -- have you found the knowledge you've gained particularly useful in running your own business? Is it of significant value if you have no intention of getting on the big corp treadmill?
MBA <> MBA. NBA from Harvard, Princeton, Penn <> MBA from some tiny no name school or even MBAs from state colleges.
No MBA program at Princeton. Michigan's MBA is top 10. It depends but in general the statement is correct.
When I did my undergrad at UT I was blown away by this guy who did two years at ACC and had a 4.0 and transfered into the McCombs school. Granted this was a year prior to the top 10% rule.
What I was taught in B-school (from Advocacy class): It's not who you know, it's who knows YOU. (Meaning, it's not enough to just network. You also need to leave enough of an impression on people so that they actually remember you.)
My wife is a UW(Cougars) alumni, graduated with an accounting degree in 98. Started her a career with one of the big four(Price Waterhouse Coopers), she was only making around 35K as an auditor, few years later got her CPA, changed companies and positions a few times, one of them was a consultant for a French company(she's fluent in French). She's just left her current job as a financial reporting manager( I told her to do that) because her boss was being a douche(long story). Cornell-Queen accepted her to their EMBA proram this year and she's currently in class. As soon as my wife left her current job, the recruiters are all over her ,and they got her another job as a director of financial reporting ,with salary nearly doubled her old job(she was making over (130K). I wish you well in your future plans, can't really give you any advice since that is my wife's career field, just wanted to share and maybe it will shed some light for you. I can tell you this , she busted her behind in the past 10 years to get where she is today, there are many nights during filing season , the earliest times she came home home from work is 11 pm and she came in to work at 8 am. Good luck bro!
Either he went to the wrong school or is looking for accounting jobs in the wrong city. I had plenty of internships and was an average student and still managed an accounting job right out of college with a starting salary of 65k. But that's on par with the other offers I received for financial analyst positions. I was looking for job security more than anything at this point. I didn't want to be an analyst working 90 hour weeks and then 2 years down the road not be able to find any job at all. This advice was given to me by my cousin who works for Merrill Lynch. He said he's lucky to still have a job but he doesn't do anything all day. He said he only knew of 4 people out of hundreds who were laid off this past year who were able to find another job. I do tax accounting BTW. It is quite different than accounting. Just look up the starting salaries, I think the average is 59k. As for your comment about 45k being pretty good for accounting majors, we don't live in the year 1999 anymore. Interns make anywhere from $15-24/hr these days...
This is the best response I have seen so far. Here is a salary guide that can give you a general idea of what accountants are making in the Houston area: http://houston.snirecruiting.com/ As a former auditor for a big 4 firm, I can tell you that the starting pay for an accountant with no experience is pretty good as long as you go to a big 4 firm or a major company (which Houston has lots of). If you are interested in a career in accounting, and sure that you want to stay in accounting and not switch to something else like Finance, then you really don't need an MBA. The accounting profession doesn't care about you having an MBA. They care about you having a CPA and years of work experience in their field. For example, when Exxon hires they look for accountants with a CPA and X amount of years doing oil and gas accounting (very different from real estate or retail accounting for example). Now if you don't have X amount of years in their field then you can make it, or get ahead, by having a certain amount of years doing audit....since the general idea is that auditors can do anything accounting related and learn fast. I'm not saying you will never need an MBA, but the only cases I see it (in Accounting) are if you really get into the SR management of a company...and in those cases I can see them paying for you to go get an MBA. Get a Masters in Accounting and go from there.
