Worried about my career choice

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  • #192783
    Ganondorf
    Participant

    Hello. I just found this website, and I really wish I would have found it sooner. I am a 4th year Accounting major who will be starting my 5th year this coming Fall.

    I took a tax class last semester, and I did not do very well in it. I struggled a lot, and I got a C grade in the class. In every other Accounting class I have taken I have gotten A’s and B’s without struggling nearly as much. At the end of the semester, my tax professor had us complete a tax return as a final project. I was very lost doing this, and I know I did a very bad job on it. Thankfully, the professor did not grade it for accuracy.

    When I first started college, I wanted to become a tax accountant. Now after doing so poorly in that tax class, I am not so sure. I don’t know if I could actually handle a tax career since I struggled so much in that class. Has anyone here ever done poorly in a college tax class but yet still gone on to be successful in a tax career? I am currently looking to get an internship at a firm, but I am worried that I will do a bad job at it since I did so bad in that class.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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  • #657541
    Mjganier
    Participant

    I wouldn't base your career on a single tax class. I remember my professor saying how much he pitied us that we had to test and remember so many rules and exceptions for exams and projects when in the profession everything is done on software that you just enter in all the information and it calculates everything.That is the main difference between classroom and real world. You're not going to be expected to know it all. Just because you made a C doesn't mean you can't do tax work. As far as an internship, it may or may not hurt you in getting one. Depends on the firm and how well you sell yourself. I honestly hate doing taxes but I enjoy my work as a tax auditor and I'm damn good at it even though I made C's in my tax classes. When you do get that internship/job, just make sure and bust your butt to learn from everything. You're not going to be the best at it right at the get go, but as long as you learn from mistakes made and work hard, you'll do well.

    FAR 8/18/2014--87
    AUD 10/18/2014--78
    REG 11/24/2014--76
    BEC 2/28/2015--76

    "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"-Albert Einstein

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    #657542
    jbarwick
    Member

    Started college wanting to be a Tax Accountant? That's rare! I admit I am terrible with personal taxes and to this day do not do my own. Even when working at a small firm and only having some basic things I couldn't complete my own taxes. I mostly worked on business taxes and after a while you get the hang of it. Tax software makes it a lot easier and at some point it was easier to look for errors on the return itself than the look in the software. If you have a passion for it, go for it. You will just have to learn on the job which is 95% of most jobs.

    Journey Started - January 2015
    FAR - 4/2015 - Passed
    AUD - 7/2015 - Passed
    BEC - 8/2015 - Passed
    REG - 11/12/2015 - Passed

    #657543
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Those who want to be a tax accountant feel it is a good decision up until the point where they actually start working as a tax accountant.

    #657544
    OnMyWay732
    Participant

    My GPA was extremely sub-par but I was an awesome employee in public (constant exceeds expectations feedback). Work and school are not one in the same

    AUD - July 2014 - 76
    REG - August 2014 - 82
    FAR - November 2014 - 78
    BEC - January 2015 - 81

    DONE!!!!

    Used Becker online. Who needs a text when you can burn your eyes out staring at the screen for months on end?

    "Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you're hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"

    #657545
    s2sylvir
    Member

    I got a C, and only because of attendance extra credit. I think my lowest exam grade in that class was like 43.

    I hated my tax professor. His teaching style was horrible. He used another professor's exams, who's teaching style is completely different from his. He can, to this day, kiss my ass.

    On every exam I took in his class, I never received full credit on any of the word problems. Every problem always had a phase-out portion and I never freaking understood it based on the way he taught us. I understand it now, no thanks to him.

    Anyway, bottom line, real life tax is nothing like your Tax I class. I love tax, hate that class to every bitter core in my body, because I lost so much sleep over that wretched class.

    BEC - PASS (79)
    AUD - PASS (63, 71, 74, 74, 83)
    REG - PASS (88)
    FAR - PASS (58, 89)

    Becker for all + FAR 10 Point Combo

    #657546
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I got a D in Corporate Tax class and after college, I worked as a senior accountant for 7 years and now I value businesses and know/understand corporate returns like the back of my hand. And I look at the back of my hand a lot.

    Sometimes, classes do not replicate the real world variables and some of us learn better through first hand experience and not just reading from a textbook. Taxes are something you need to immerse yourself in and prepare a return on your own, instead of reading about Company XY's return and figuring out how they got to some numbers and on what basis.

    College, to me, helped with about 10% of my career. The rest is on the job knowledge. Don't get down because of a crappy class–things start clicking when you start working in the field. Then you can decide whether or not you like your decision.

    #657547
    SSW33
    Member

    I wouldn't worry about it. I made a D the first time I took tax. It wasn't a good semester for me plus the teacher I had was really old and seemed to ramble on and on about how good his wife's cooking was. Anyway, I thought tax was awful based on that class. I retook it later with another teacher and breezed through it with an A. It can be hard to judge whether you are good at something or not based on a class.

    AUD 95
    FAR 87
    REG 83
    BEC 80

    "It's our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

    #657548
    Regular Tax Dude
    Participant

    I would suggest you to join the VITA program, once you did it, the knowledge will flows. Trust me, I was in the same situation.

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