Career Change to Accounting: TESU or WGU?

[bghill]

New poster here, and let me start by saying thank you to everyone who has shared their experience and knowledge in this forum and made it the absolute gold mine of information that it is! This forum is going to make finding my path some much easier than it would otherwise have been.

Secondly, apologies for the long post! :-)

So, I have been working in the library field, mostly as a cataloger. Budget cuts at my workplace have led me to think about my career direction for the future. I thought accounting might be congenial to me – I am very analytical and detail-oriented – and would have more job prospects going forward.

I have a BA in History from Excelsior, so I'm familiar with the whole self-directed learning thing; but I have essentially no background in accounting or business (although I've done some layman-level reading about economics).

However, I am not aiming to become CFO or head of an accounting department or anything like that. (I'm not interested in being a manager, for one thing. Also, I'm already in my 50s, so I don't have that much time to climb the career ladder.) A low-to-mid-level accountant position is as far as I plan to go; and I'd like to work in either the non-profit or government sector.

It seems pretty clear that the quickest and cheapest route to a degree would be the TESU BSBA, with a degree plan based on Sanantone's splendid plan posted on the wiki.

I would use some combination of credits I earned for my BA and CLEP, DSST, TECEP, or ECEP exams, or SL or Saylor courses for the general distribution and Business Core requirements. (Luckily, I've always been very good at tests! I am one of those who prefers taking tests to writing papers.)

For the AoS, I was thinking of something like:
Intermediate Acct. I – SL
Intermediate Acct. II – CSU CBE
Federal Income Taxation – TECEP
Cost Acct. – SL (Managerial Acct.)
Auditing – CSU CBE
Govt. & Non-Profit Acct. – CSU CBE

Business Electives:
Info Systems for Acct. – CSU CBE
Organizational Behavior – SL, DSST, or ECEP
Financial Institutions and Markets – TECEP – or possibly an accounting class, from LSU or community college

However, I'm wondering if this will give me enough of a grounding to actually be able to do the work when I get a job. (I'm being optimistic and saying “when” not “if”.) :-)

Would WGU give me a better grounding in usable work skills, or would it just be more hoops to jump through? If I assume I would transfer in the maximum 60 credits, I would need to complete 20 courses. At my guesstimated rate of one course per month (does this seem realistic for someone with no background in the field?), it would take me 3 terms to complete.

That would be about twice the cost and perhaps 50% longer time than TESU, as well as probably being more work – which would be worth it if, and only if, it would be significantly better preparation for working as an accountant.

Any thoughts, opinions, etc. would be appreciated – and thanks for reading!

[sanantone]

Just a heads up on the wiki, I have to go and check all my degree plans. Someone updated the wiki, which is great, but there were some mistakes in editing my plans. WGU doesn't provide much instruction, so you'll mostly be teaching yourself whether you choose WGU or TESU.

There are no business electives in the current catalog. There should be a warning at the top of all the old degree plans. The new degree plans are labeled "post July 1, 2015."

Sanantone's BSBA in Accounting post-July 1, 2015 | Degree Forum Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia

[dfrecore]

First, I would like to say that as someone who started working in accounting at the lowest levels with no degree and no experience, it is definitely something you can learn as you go. I started out making $9 as an accounting assistant in a small company, with a patient boss, and ended years later making a lot more money doing Compensation Management. Just small steps along the way made a big difference over the years. So this is a field where a business degree and a little education can really take you far (and this is not limited to Accounting).

Second, your BA in History should come into TESU and get all of your Gen Ed's and Free Electives completed. That will leave your core and AOS to complete. Not sure where the Business Electives you listed would come in - there is no section for Business Electives any longer at TESU. You need to make sure that you're looking at the most current catalog when making your plans.

One additional option you can utilize if you want to save some money is Study.com. They have 2 UL Accounting courses that you can do, and it's only $199/mo for both of them: Applied Managerial Accounting (comes in at TESU as ACC-301) and Advanced Accounting (comes in at TESU as ACC-401). that could replace 2 more expensive courses at CSU-Global of $250 each.

Other than that, the core can easily be completed through testing or SL or Study.com.

TESU is also very clear with what the requirements are, and how you can complete them. WGU will be a little more difficult, but still doable.

At WGU, the requirements are very similar to TESU. The one thing to keep in mind is that once you enroll at WGU, you can't bring in any additional courses. So, what you need to make sure is that you take any courses that you think you want to bring in after applying, but before enrolling. My advice for WGU is that you apply (I think it's free) and see what they do with your transcripts. Then, determine how much it would cost to bring in any additional courses that you can test out of easily/cheaply. Then, look at how much you think you can complete at WGU in 1-2 terms (however much you want to spend) and work back and forth to figure out the most cost-effective means of taking courses ahead of time versus taking courses through them.

Then, compare that to TESU, doing all of the core, AOS and paying the Waiver. I think you may find that TESU is cheaper, but I'm not certain of that.

[bghill]

Sanantone,
Thanks, yes, I saw that plan was for an older version of the TESU requirements, but it looked like a good place to start, and I could go back and update things once I decided definitely on going to TESU.

dfrecore,
I really appreciate hearing from someone in the field; it's a good "reality check" for me. So far, this has all just been my thinking about things and poking about on the Internet. And thanks for the tip on the Study.com courses! Great to have more UL possibilities -- although I'd probably do them in addition to the CSU CBEs rather than instead of, as I want to do as many credits of accounting as I can.

My pencil calculations indicate that TESU will absolutely be cheaper than WGU, unless I finished WGU in one term (6 months) -- which I don't think I can, with no accounting background. I'm a quick study, but I don't think I'm that quick! So unless I get some information to suggest that WGU would be significantly qualitatively superior, I will be going with TESU.

[dfrecore]

Sanantone,
Great to have more UL possibilities -- although I'd probably do them in addition to the CSU CBEs rather than instead of, as I want to do as many credits of accounting as I can.

If you think you might want to do more credits, you should look at TESU's BSBA in Accounting/CPA track, which actually requires 24cr of Accounting (18cr of UL) rather than just 18cr (12cr of UL). You would have no free electives available. But, it would allow you to get 2 more UL courses in the field.

[bghill]

The Accounting/CPA track looks like a good idea. Who knows if I'll ever actually get as far as trying for CPA status, but it's only two more courses, and it will give me the option if I want it. I'll just have to verify that Washington State will accept credits from exams. (They do accept credits from non-accredited sources, as long as the degree is from an accredited school.)

And if I'm sick of accounting courses when I get to those last two, I can always switch to the regular accounting track.

[tesu-acct-student]

I recommend taking the accounting sequence at a local cc in this order:

Financial accounting
Managerial accounting
Intermediate I
Intermediate II

Don't go by the course numbers, go by the name and description.

The reason: I have read the course descriptions for some of the credits that transfer into the TESU acct degree (such as SL), and I don't think they are equivalent. Since they are not equivalent, you won't learn what you need to know to be a successful accountant. It might be OK for another business major, but not for an accounting major. I discussed this problem on another thread:

http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...ng-ii.html

Please see my comments there.

All of this is doubly true of you want to go for a CPA license.

[Synicaal]

I recommend taking the accounting sequence at a local cc in this order:

Financial accounting
Managerial accounting
Intermediate I
Intermediate II

Don't go by the course numbers, go by the name and description.

The reason: I have read the course descriptions for some of the credits that transfer into the TESU acct degree (such as SL), and I don't think they are equivalent. Since they are not equivalent, you won't learn what you need to know to be a successful accountant. It might be OK for another business major, but not for an accounting major. I discussed this problem on another thread:

http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...ng-ii.html

Please see my comments there.

All of this is doubly true of you want to go for a CPA license.

I know this is an older post however for anyone who does see this thread in the future I just want to SECOND everything tesu-acct-student said in the post. I can stress the importance of getting some "Butt In Seat" courses for accounting in. This goes for Online classes as well. You can see from my signature what I have taken in CC and outside of CC. I also plan to take 2 accounting courses from SL. SL's Financial Accounting comes into TESU as Intermediate Accounting I which is kind of a joke but I am going to use it to finish out the degree plan. I 100% Plan on going back to Oakton CC and doing Intermediate Accounting I from that school in the fall. I have probably learned way more stuff from the Financial Accounting, and Intermediate Accounting II courses I have taken at a CC then the 2 UL courses from Study.com. In order to truly know what your doing and not constantly have to look stuff up I would recommend at the very least take you Financial Accounting, Intermediate Accounting I/II at a school. Managerial/Cost Accounting and those are more geared towards cost factoring and stuff that I really just never want to do ever. I am taking my Midterm for Intermediate Accounting II this Sunday and it will show me where I stand in the accounting world. I feel I have been prepping for this good and shouldn't have any issues, however this teacher has been known for her hard tests.

Side Note: I would be willing to bet money that anyone who gets there degree in accounting from using all "Test-out" style course could not pass the CPA exam without very intensive studying which would lead to a large amount of time you could have just spent taking the courses. Also there is a large amount of changes coming in accounting shortly so a lot of material is going to need to updated.