Early Life Crisis

[Mootland Farmer]

Obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Ardour]

I think you should drop out of school and become a sheep herder for the summer with a close(male) friend.

[death row]

I think you should drop out of school and become a sheep herder for the summer with a close(male) friend.

rofl !

[Izor]

Do something you enjoy. Trust me

[Squeezer]

Do something you enjoy. Trust me

like killing brown people

[Summa]

While some people really have a grasp on what they want to do with their life in high school, the majority of people do not. In terms of classes in high school, take the ones that will qualify you best to get into a good university. Then when you're there, take some classes, do some real thinking, and figure out what it is you want to do. I can't tell you how many people I have met here at college that came in saying "I am going to be a doctor!" and now, in the spring are thinking about transferring and becoming something like a business major. I don't mean to demean or undermine your confidence, but chances are the conception of what you want to do with your life will drastically change over the next 3 yrs.

[project dragon]

consult your schools guidance counselor.

[Epinephrine]

what?

When my dad was starting out in the work force 40 years ago, every company had an army of accountants (he was a financial controller, he was the boss of all the accountants). That was necessary because all figures needed to be checked and rechecked by people using their brains. With the advent of calculators, a lot of people got fired, and then after computers were used the accounting departments shrunk more and more. Sure you still need accountant for things now (like doing taxes, but then again a lot of people just buy computer tax programs), but it's definitely not a growing field and not where you could concievably have a stable career for the next 40 years. In other words, I wouldn't try and base everything on a dream of being an accountant unless you really, really, really wanted to do it.

[the_paul]

P.S. don't be an accountant. It's a dead field, replaced by the power of Excel.

Wut?

[DankNuggets]

put it to you this way:

whatever you take now, assuming you do well in it, you might not have to take later. If you have the choice between taking regular chemistry and AP chemistry, you really can't hurt yourself (besides HS gpa) by taking the course, even if you don't pass the AP exam. The assumption is that you'll just have to take the class again in college, and you'll already be exposed the the material.

If i had a choice to do it over, i'd take AP english over chemistry of bio since it seems to fuck over a lot more peole in college. There are a TON of english 101 professors (and grad students) and a few science professors usually. That means you have a potluck chance of getting a really good/really bad english teacher, and a releatively stable chance of getting a good science teacher. That and chem/bio 101 in college is a powerpoint course in studying notes. English 101 could be easy as hell, write what you want; or it could be hard as fuck, do 2 papers every week.

Also, if you want to be an accountant, you won't have to take more than one of each of those courses (or possibly just one between the two) so you'd probably be OK not taking either one in HS. You will probably have to take some more liberal arts courses, so maybe the English AP or History AP would be better.

[phata$$]

Fuck hot bitches.

[Liquid Blue]

get money

[Adman]

get honey.

[Galleleo]

From everything I know, being an accountant is a pretty stable and reassuring job. Basically you get promoted to a higher level accountant every bunch of years you have been working with a company. They are actually actively recruiting accountants and trying to convince people why it is totally kickassly awesome to be an accountant at my home university (I think it's boring, you need to like numbers). But companies like Ernst and Young, KPMG, etc. still hire tons of accountants each year.

[Ilya]

managerial accountants (the kind you're talking about who work inside companies) are probably decreasing, which i've seen too.. at my dad's work, 5 years ago there were 9 members of the accounting department, compared to 3 now. but i really don't think excel or any accounting software has much to do with it. they're just getting more efficient and getting rid of 10 non-degree accountants with 1 CPA.... which is good news if you want to major in accounting (and take the CPA).

as for public accounting, it's far from shrinking. i don't know about canadaville, but as long as the US tax code is over 16k pages and there's new reporting and auditing regulations every year, accounting isn't going anywhere. we had 4 layoffs during this recession. 4 out of 440 employees. i think the porn industry had more than that.

but you definitely need to decide what you want to do. it's not for everyone, and unless you really want to do it, you'll kill yourself halfway through your 1st tax season.