[CPASF1]

Hi everyone! I was an econ major in undergraduate and took accounting classes in addition to my major my last two years at university as well as at another school (community college). If you were a non-accounting major or didn’t do a masters in accounting can you please share how you may have made up for the knowledge or lack of while studying for these exams. Was just the review course enough for you? I am trying to go through all the material and ask questions on the forum, but I just keep doubting myself every second of studying for that reason. Thanks! 🙂

[Round2]

Hi,

I have a bachelor's degree in accounting but do not have a master's degree. In fact, my original degree was in political science and history, but I went back a couple years later for my accounting degree. I have found the review course to be sufficient, having passed 3 sections.

AUD - 94
BEC - 93
FAR - 88
REG - 79

Round2

[Anonymous]

I have a math degree and an MBA with a minor in accounting. I completed my master's degree more than a decade ago, have a family and work full time somewhere between 45 to 50 hours per week. My work is more on the budget management side so I am not directly involved with accounting.

The review materials will give you enough knowledge to pass the exams. The exam is more about determination and preparation rather than pre-existing accounting background.

This forum might overwhelm you from time to time, especially before taking your first section. Make a plan, study consistently, keep learning the material and don't worry about most of the comments made here regarding how hard the exam is.

Making the long story short, there is no reason to doubt about yourself. The exam is very doable for a non-accounting major.

[Matt]

I had a political science undergrad background and almost no accounting background, on top of that I was out selling insurance for a few years after my undergrad.

I had two basically level accounting courses 5 or 6 years ago that I kind of slid through.

To put it short, the information is there, it will just take you more hours and require more work.

I just plug away three to four hours a day, 7 days a week doing multiple choice.

If you keep trying you'll eventually catch up.

That's it.

Gleim/NINJA

FAR 74,81 Pass November 2016
AUD 71,74,84 Pass January 2017
BEC 79 Pass March 2017
REG 71,80 Pass November 2017

FAR 74

[ultrarunner]

CPASF1, my major had absolutely nothing to do with accounting. I had Bachelors and Masters in philosophy. I earned them more than a decade ago. All my accounting classes were from CCs while working full time. You should be fine as long as you study hard with the CPA review course. Do not doubt yourself. Good luck!

CPA/ MST/ Roger CPA Review

FAR 72,67,79 (Roger+Wiley test bank)11/15
AUD 80 (Roger)10/15
BEC 80 (Roger)4/16
REG 63,78 (Roger+Ninja MCQs)5/16

[ipadminihalf]

I completed my undergraduate studies in Econ (graduated 2007) and took most of the qualifying accounting courses from 2009-2010 and just finished the exams over the entire 2016 year. I used Roger and I thought the review course taught you all you needed for the exam, maybe even too much at times. It is quite a commitment but if you study and follow what the review course tells you, you should be fine. The roger course tells you to watch the lectures, read the book and do the questions at least 2 times, if not 3. Maybe you can make some slight alterations to this, but I think doing the full course the way it was intended is very helpful, because you get 3 different exposures to the material (lecture, reading, questions). I watched lectures once, read the book at least 2 times and did the questions anywhere from 2-4 times depending on whether I understood the material or not.

.

REG - 2/19/16 - 77!
BEC - 4/16/16 - 79!!
AUD - 6/04/16 - 84!!!
FAR - 8/31/16

[tg7174]

Lit major in undergrad and econ for Masters. Took all of my accounting courses online through LSU and used CPAexcel + NINJA material for my exams. Did not take a tax class either. The prep materials will pull you through.

AUD 83
BEC 78
FAR 78
REG 74, 79

[Anonymous]

I find this question similar to how people ask can you not be a bio major and go to medical school? I thought part of the education requirement is to have at least 30 hours of accounting…As long as you have done that it helps quite a bit. I was a finance major, have worked in accounting for years, and did 15 accounting classes recently to fulfill the education requirements….

[aaronmo]

I studied liberal arts and changed majors frequently…I have no business classes in my major at all (though I did take macro and statistics…20 years ago). I have 36 credits of accounting course work taken at community colleges post-secondary.

Actually I think non-accounting business classes are mostly non-sense, and the people who take them usually the dimmer bulbs (at least that's how it was when I went to school in the stone ages). My liberal arts background, and later career focus in legal, means I can read, analyze and think. That's something most MBAs I've known can't do, so I consider my background stronger.

Here's my secret…and I used Becker only…

I did the work in the prep course.

That's it. I did all of the homework, all of the sims and tried to make sure I understood everything they covered. Worked out fine.

AUD - 96
BEC - 84
FAR - 89
REG - 86

Aaron and always remember, YMMV

I profit from your CPE frustration. You're welcome.

[CPASF1]

Thank you everyone! I appreciate your kind words of encouragement, reading your responses definitely eases the concerns that I sometimes have while studying. 🙂

[Anonymous]

I was an econ major more than 25 years ago. I last worked as an accountant/in finance in 1999. In Aug 2014 I decided to zig a bit from what I was doing and get my CPA license. I took the Becker Review course. Passed Reg and Audit. I realised I needed a bit more help with advanced accounting. I took an advanced accounting semester and got an A. Passed Bus and Far. Passed Ethics course. All told, took me about around 12 months. Got my license in Oct 2015. Started job searching. Yeah. Not much luck with that trying to get in with a CPA firm. They only want new grads or people with public experience. 🙁 Just got a job (for those of you counting, more than 1.5 years later) as Controller for a small international privately held company.

[Sowelu]

Don't doubt yourself! I was an econ major too and had to take extra accounting classes over the past couple years. You don't need a degree to understand accounting concepts – some of them are hard to grasp at first, but coming back to it and breaking it down, reading/researching different explanations helps. Like with econ, it's all in understanding the foundation and building up from there. Good luck!

FAR - 97
AUD - 99
BEC - 96
REG - 94

FAR (Apr 2016) - 97
AUD (Jul 2016) - 99

[Anonymous]

I imagine it is much harder for non- accounting majors. My undergraduate work has immensely help in my preparation for the CPA Exam. I am positive I would not have passed FAR on my first attempt if I had not taken all of the FAR courses as an undergrad – except govt/nfp. My intermediate and advanced classes were somewhat just a review, but the Review Course covered much more material. You can probably pass with only a good Review Course and some accounting units, but it will take you more time since u have never seen some of material. Thanks God I worked my butt off as an undergrad! It payed off for FAR!!

[Author]

Replies