Wanna be a arid accountant? It's not the mind-numbing, number-crunching career that abounding assume, as abounding contempo academy graduates can attest.
Just ask 27-year-old Grayson Moyse, who started aftermost summer at one of the country's top-rated accounting firms, Macias Gini & O'Connell in Sacramento.
Boring? Wearing red sneakers and a atramentous Giants baseball hat at his firm's contempo "employee appreciation" airing to a River Cats game, Moyse says accounting isn't the atomic bit dull.
"When I was in college, I didn't anticipate it would be as people-oriented as it is. It's not actuality on a computer in a anteroom all day," said the Sacramento Accompaniment accounting major, who accelerating in May 2011 afterwards switching from analysis and a brewery science path.
"What's abundant about accounting is there are a agglomeration of agency you can clothier it to lath what you appetite to do," said the Stockton native, active off such accessible careers as auditor, coffer examiner, analyst, arch banking officer.
At a time aback abounding of his post-college aeon are disturbing to acquisition assignment or briefly active aback at home with mom and dad, Moyse and his numbers-friendly colleagues are accepting airtight up for decent-paying jobs.
Considered one of the country's hottest hiring sectors, accounting jobs are projected to access 15.7 percent through 2020, according to the U.S. Agency of Labor Statistics. Median bacon for accountants in 2012: $61,690, according to the bureau.
And now there's a new aisle to nab some of those jobs.
This fall, UC Davis is ablution one of alone two UC master's degrees in accountancy, afterward in the footsteps of accompaniment universities that accept been alms avant-garde accounting degrees for years. In accomplishing so, UC Davis avalanche in footfall with a new accompaniment law that requires – starting in January 2014 – an added year of post-college advance assignment afore accepting a CPA license.
Professor Robert Yetman, a CPA and architect of UC Davis' new masters in able accountancy program, says California CPAs were at a astringent disadvantage because the accompaniment was one of alone two that didn't crave the added 30 division units to access a license.
"It meant our CPAs weren't transferrable to addition state," Yetman said. "If you had a applicant in Texas, you didn't accommodated their requirements so it fabricated it difficult to assignment on multistate (assignments)."
Part of UC Davis' mission is to abandon the old notions about the profession.
"Accounting is way above the Dark Ages of the blooming eyeshade," said Will Snyder, controlling administrator of UC Davis' new program. "You accept to be a activating person, a all-around thinker. … Accounting can be actual artistic and a acceptable way to accomplish a difference."
That's how Moyse, a first-year banking auditor, angle his job: circadian analytic amidst a assorted mix of business types and applicant personalities.
And, he says, it's a career that matters.
"We're attractive at a burghal or county's banking statements, and if something's missing it affects taxpayers who are advantageous into it. If it's a alimony statement, it affects accompaniment workers and (retirees). … What we're accomplishing affects people's accustomed lives."
For its countdown master's class, UC Davis has already accustomed 23 acceptance – primarily Californians but additionally acceptance from China, India and added states. With September applications still open, UC Davis expects to accept 25 to 30 students; UC Riverside says it will booty 40.
"We can booty addition who's not an accountant and about-face them into an accountant – in one absolutely adamantine year," said Yetman, acquainted that UC Davis' affairs is accessible to acceptance of any major, not aloof business or accounting students.
Snyder said UC Davis' aboriginal chic includes acceptance with majors from archaeology to philosophy. Some appetite to assignment for Big Four accounting firms or bounded CPA offices. Others appetite to specialize in agronomical accounting, government auditing or alike building work.
The UC Davis affairs is aimed at allowance ample accounting jobs in the underserved Central Valley, bringing added Latino and boyhood acceptance into banking fields, said Yetman.
Ken Macias, a above lath administrator of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, says accounting has confused from actuality a white male-dominated field, but there's still "a charge to accept added boyhood CPAs to advice arising entrepreneurs," abounding of them Latino small-business owners.
As of 2009, the California Society of CPAs said alone 4 percent of its associates were Latino and alone 2 percent were black.
Macias, a CSUS alum who holds both bachelor's and master's degrees in business and accountancy, doesn't see the UC Davis affairs as a adverse adversary to accompaniment universities.
"Sac Accompaniment already has an accountancy affairs that's longtime established," he noted. "Davis brings the cachet of a UC, but there's allowance for both in Northern California."
At about $38,500 a year, the one-year UC master's amount isn't cheap. "That's a accumulation of money," agreed Yetman. "It's big-ticket because it's a awful abstruse degree, our (MBA) adroitness is teaching and it costs a lot to bear alive curriculum." (By contrast, the CSUS accountancy master's amount is accomplished online alone and costs about $17,100.)
Yetman said the UC Davis affairs is absolutely self-funded, demography no accompaniment money. About 5 percent to 10 percent of its charge revenues are actuality set abreast for need- and merit-based scholarships.
(The civic and California CPA associations additionally action scholarships for acceptance advancing undergraduate or master's degrees in accountancy.)
With the country still balked by adamant unemployment, adolescent accountants like David Hollyman, 27, who started at Macias Gini & O'Connell four years ago, are counting on some job security.
"As the abridgement goes down, regulations about go up, which agency added assignment for us," said Hollyman, a CSUS alum who has his CPA license. "It's a appealing recession-proof job."
NEW UC DAVIS MASTER'S DEGREE IN ACCOUNTING
What it is: The aboriginal master's amount in "professional accountancy" offered by University of California, starting this abatement at UC Davis and UC Riverside. Known as an MPAc (master of able accountancy).
What it covers: A one-year affairs of avant-garde classes in auditing, tax and banking reporting, all-embracing accounting, belief and communications.
Tuition: About $38,500.
Enrollment: 25-40 acceptance per campus for September 2012; applications still accessible online (UC Davis: www.gsm.ucdavis.edu; UC Riverside: www.agsm.ucr.edu).
Where abroad offered: Private colleges and accessible accompaniment universities, including CSU Sacramento and CSU Chico, which action master's of science degrees in accountancy. Some MSA programs, including the one at CSUS, are accomplished alone online.
Why it's important: Starting in January 2014, all CPA candidates in California charge accept an added 30 division units above their bachelor's amount – the agnate of a one-year master's. It's allotment of a 2009 law that brings California in band with CPA requirements in best added states.