Thinking It Through

I've been fretting over the education issue recently. I currently work as a legal secretary/assistant. It's not my dream in life, especially at Year 30. The pay is fine -- I would not be able to purchase a studio condo here in HCOL City, USA -- but since my expenses are low, I am fine for now. The thing is, I don't want my expenses to be so very low. I’d love to have children, and a home with a garden. I’d like to own a vehicle so that I could explore the rural areas of this region, and visit my folks more often and on a reasonable schedule.

There’s no way to “move up” in my field without becoming a lawyer. (If there’s anyone reading this who is thinking “Why not become a paralegal?” It’s the same problem and not nearly as much money as you think it is, plus the glut of law school graduates means that more lawyers are going after paralegal jobs.) I don’t think the attorney path is for me. Law school is breathtakingly expensive and there are no guarantees.

However, I do enjoy numbers and finance very much. The idea of a career in accounting or corporate finance had been knocking about in the back of my head for almost four years now. My educational background is in linguistics, philosophy, and a bit of mathematics. I stopped pursuing a linguistics degree because I was barely treading water financially. I switched back to working full time in order to pay off a big stack of student loan bills. This post is becoming autobiographical, when what I want to do this afternoon is create a list of pros and cons on continuing the path toward an accounting degree (with an eye on passing the CPA exam).

 

Pro: 1. An accounting degree would earn me more money in the long run. 2. An accounting career would let me become an expert at something, and eventually I would move on from a subordinate role. (If I’m good enough, that is.) 3. I know that I’d enjoy it more than my current career path. 4. I don’t have anything better to do with my spare time.

Cons: 1. There might be significant troubles in finishing the degree around a full-time job. The universities in my area offer classes on a limited basis. It could drag out for another four years. 2. If the worst-case scenario of (1) happened, I’d feel like I wasted a lot of money. 3. Not sure if the cost of the degree would offset the expected earnings. 4. I’ve got a lot to pay for now – I need to rebuild savings and get on a solid footing financially – going back to school would take away from that. 5. “I don’t have anything better to do with my spare time.” – ugh!

 

Looking at that quick and dirty list, I think the pro side outweighs the cons. I don’t want to waste money (which is why I won’t finish the linguistics degree), but it’s clear I am not happy with the path that I am on, and I am not even happy with the compensation levels of the path I am on.