This entry was originally intended to be a quick update on what's going on lately in my world, but it turned out to be more like a five year plan, so I guess that's just as good - y'know, setting goals and all. As far as my study goes, I'm currently in my last semester of my associate degree with only a couple of months to go - come early August I'll be done and will graduate with an Associate Degree in Applied Science with an Accounting major, and unless I mess up badly, my ending GPA should be 3.95 or something close to that.

After that I'll be transferring to another College for at least two more years of full time study to complete my Baccalaureate (or Bachelors) Degree - not NYU unfortunately, can't afford it and they don't cross-credit much anyway as it turns out, although my GPA was good enough to get me accepted to Stern Business School. The degree will be a BSc (Bachelor of Science), again with Accounting major. They notate it just as BS here as opposed to BSc, but I prefer the latter, for what should be obvious reasons. Funny, I always thought it would be a business degree like MBA, but apparently not, those are more for business administration majors (at least at undergrad level), whereas accounting is a profession ..at least I think that's the logic behind it.

The next step about six months or so later will be the daunting three-day-long CPA Exam, which would qualify me as a Certified Public Accountant (although I'd still need to do either two years full time work in auditing, or one year of auditing work and a masters degree to make it 'official'). That exam allegedly has only a 14% pass rate in NYC, and is mostly taken by postgrad (masters) students and qualified professionals already working in accounting full time. I've been advised by more than one professor that after graduating with my BSc, I need to lock myself away for at least four to six months of dedicated full time intensive study every day with zero distractions in order to do well on those exams. Scary, although better to take it while the previous four years of study are relatively fresh in my mind, and before I pick up any different (albeit acceptable) methods of accounting out in the public sector.

Once that is done, then I hope to be working full time and hopefully doing a Masters Degree part time. If possible, I'd like to do that at NYU since it has one of the best business schools around - NYU's Leonard N Stern School of Business. I should be able to afford it more readily, and I believe having a Bachelor Degree and CPA qualification already would mean there's no cross-credit issues. Whether that degree is a MSc (Masters Degree in Science) or an MBA (Masters of Business Admin) I'm currently unsure, but whichever it is, I'd like to do it.

There is one possible problem. Apparently in 2009 the CPA qualification is changing so that the prerequisite is 150 university credits to be able to take the exam, rather than the current 120 credits (currently almost all Bachelors Degrees consist of 120 credits). That means I may have to do my Masters Degree first, or possibly a Bachelors Degree will require 150 credits to graduate. Nobody seems to be clear on it, which is actually a big concern as I will be graduating at around that time, which means I may get stung by this change and need to complete an additional year of full time study, or I may just squeak in and be able to get through the CPA before the new rules take effect. I wish they were a bit more clear on what the implications were already.

So that's pretty much it on the career side. Pretty late start, but better late than never. You certainly need a degree to get anywhere in New York now (either that or rich parents), and even a basic Bachelor of Arts degree isn't really cutting it anymore on its own, at least not as much as it used to. I still recall about two years ago while looking through the available jobs in NYC and I saw one for a delivery boy ..one of the requirements was a four year college (university) degree. Crazy.

The good thing with accounting is that it's currently one of the more in-demand professions, and starting salaries approach US$100k for CPA's in NYC, which is great. A few years of that combined with whatever awesome salary Ice will be on by then and we should be sitting pretty comfortably.

So that's my plan, or part of our plan I should say. Ice will soon be finished with her Masters Degree in Computer Science, and further down the line will likely undertake a PhD (in mathematics!) and become Doctor Weasling. Once her Masters Degree is done, her goals are primarily advancement in her working career, which makes perfect sense. She'll go far I'm sure - she's already on the way. I'm so proud of my Weasling.

Oh. I just realized it's April Fools Day. Umm. Ok. *hides*