Careers in accounting involving coding/programming?
October 23, 2024 5:01 AM Subscribe
I've heard that it would be beneficial to learn SQL/Python/VBA to a career in accounting, I was wondering what specific language to learn and what careers specifically I could go into with this?
Firstly I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all those who congratulated me on completing my accounting exams. It means alot that you have been a part of my journey, special shout out to the self professed lurkers who came out of the shadows to congratulate me. I was very moved & am very relieved and happy that I've finished.
But my mind won't allow me to be happy for long.
There is a backstory to this question. I apologise in advance that it has themes that are repetitive.
I've mentioned before how I only chose accounting as a career due to my severe social anxiety. What I haven't mentioned is that as I didn't get the grades to get into LSE, my Dad forced me to go through clearing.
Clearing is where you go into a pool where you can apply for roles at universities where they have spare spaces on any course (students dropped out or didn't get the grades).
My Dad made me do Computer Science at King's College London, a very prestigious university. I had zero interest in Computer Science and don't recall doing any work. I sat through lectures, having no clue what was happening and barely read a page of the textbooks. I was a kid, I didn't know where this might lead me or how good an opportunity it was.
At the end of the year I transferred to do Law somewhere else, then after a year of that transferred to do Accounting at an average university and finally completed that degree.
My Mum recently mentioned how if I'd stuck with Computer Science, I'd probably be doing quite well. I've been experiencing deep bodily feelings of grief at wasting this opportunity and how it might have been a better avenue for me. I've seen on LinkedIn how some people I was loosely friends with on the Comp Sci course are doing amazingly well in their careers. It is very painful.
The next best thing I can do right now, is learn to code and perhaps see if this is an avenue to explore within finance/accounting.
So here I am asking for any advice around this or anyone who is in this kind of role?
Firstly I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all those who congratulated me on completing my accounting exams. It means alot that you have been a part of my journey, special shout out to the self professed lurkers who came out of the shadows to congratulate me. I was very moved & am very relieved and happy that I've finished.
But my mind won't allow me to be happy for long.
There is a backstory to this question. I apologise in advance that it has themes that are repetitive.
I've mentioned before how I only chose accounting as a career due to my severe social anxiety. What I haven't mentioned is that as I didn't get the grades to get into LSE, my Dad forced me to go through clearing.
Clearing is where you go into a pool where you can apply for roles at universities where they have spare spaces on any course (students dropped out or didn't get the grades).
My Dad made me do Computer Science at King's College London, a very prestigious university. I had zero interest in Computer Science and don't recall doing any work. I sat through lectures, having no clue what was happening and barely read a page of the textbooks. I was a kid, I didn't know where this might lead me or how good an opportunity it was.
At the end of the year I transferred to do Law somewhere else, then after a year of that transferred to do Accounting at an average university and finally completed that degree.
My Mum recently mentioned how if I'd stuck with Computer Science, I'd probably be doing quite well. I've been experiencing deep bodily feelings of grief at wasting this opportunity and how it might have been a better avenue for me. I've seen on LinkedIn how some people I was loosely friends with on the Comp Sci course are doing amazingly well in their careers. It is very painful.
The next best thing I can do right now, is learn to code and perhaps see if this is an avenue to explore within finance/accounting.
So here I am asking for any advice around this or anyone who is in this kind of role?
Best to ask accountants in your field. But what do you think learning how to code will do? Make you more money? Help you move up as an accountant faster?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:08 AM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:08 AM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
There are probably ways you can use code to make your current job easier/less repetitve/less error-prone. Like, if there's a task you do regularly that takes a lot of time, see if you can figure out how to automate it either with a fancy spreadsheet or a quick-and-dirty Python script or whatever. Stuff that you do every couple of months is great for this because basically you can unload your "how do I even do this?" work into a program that does it for you next time. Likewise if you use a database frequently, learning some SQL (or the appropriate language for your db) can make your life easier if it means you don't have to ask the database administrator to write custom queries for you, etc.
But you do not need to pursue a career in software, and indeed you should not. Your mom doesn't know what she's talking about here; of course there are many CS graduates who are very successful but there are also many who are in crappy ill-paying jobs that they hate (I am a software developer and I have heard a lot of people complain about software development salaries in the UK in particular). Your mom does not know anything about the computer science job market, she is just comparing you to a small subset of people carefully selected to make herself (and you) feel bad.
Also, even if your mom were correct that you would have been more successful if you had stayed in computer science that doesn't mean changing careers NOW will make you more successful than you could be in accountancy. Stay the course.
I hope that at least intellectually you know that you need to stop comparing yourself to other people; this is a hard habit to break especially when it's being reinforced by people close to you.
posted by mskyle at 6:23 AM on October 23, 2024 [4 favorites]
But you do not need to pursue a career in software, and indeed you should not. Your mom doesn't know what she's talking about here; of course there are many CS graduates who are very successful but there are also many who are in crappy ill-paying jobs that they hate (I am a software developer and I have heard a lot of people complain about software development salaries in the UK in particular). Your mom does not know anything about the computer science job market, she is just comparing you to a small subset of people carefully selected to make herself (and you) feel bad.
Also, even if your mom were correct that you would have been more successful if you had stayed in computer science that doesn't mean changing careers NOW will make you more successful than you could be in accountancy. Stay the course.
I hope that at least intellectually you know that you need to stop comparing yourself to other people; this is a hard habit to break especially when it's being reinforced by people close to you.
posted by mskyle at 6:23 AM on October 23, 2024 [4 favorites]
You know what I think you should do? You should try to identify jobs you can do that will make you somewhat happy. You also shouldn't listen to your parents. I'm sure they mean well and I'm sure that it's their own experiences which are making them project all this stuff on you, but it will not make you happy in the long term to try to chase their expectations or quiet those kinds of demons.
How do I know? First, I'm an accountant for whom it was not a passion or an initial career goal. Second, for a different set of reasons I too had the sense that I had missed both a passion career and a rich person career and I felt bad and spent too long pursuing too much education to try to square the passion/money circle. You can't make yourself feel good about yourself and your life by just playing whack-a-mole with your parents' remarks.
I mean consider - you were so worried about the degree and so miserable about it (and congratulations on getting it done!) and the minute you've got it, you're not happy and satisfied, you've just found a new way to feel that you need to do something else and a new reason that you aren't doing well enough. That's a problem that comes from how you've struggled and been wounded in life, not from your career.
For me, actually, talk therapy made a big big difference, but different things work for different people. I had a compulsion to relive/recreate some bad situations from my youth and could never rest, emotionally speaking, and somehow just talking to a therapist over and over about all that stuff let me mostly set it down. Am I totally 100% delighted by being an accountant instead of something else? No. Do I feel some envy for peers no smarter than me who have fancier jobs? Sure. But do those feelings consume my life or make me chronically unhappy? Not anymore!
I have a job that pays sufficient for my needs with people I tend to like at an institution whose culture is relatively congenial and I have great benefits. I focus on those things and remind myself of all the people who have it much worse and how I only compare myself to people doing better than me. I probably wouldn't be happy in just any random accounting job, so I would suggest that you ultimately identify and pursue a role in a congenial institution where you feel relatively good about the work you're doing - you might need to work somewhere random first, but this will help you identify what you really want.
You're not college-age young, IIRC, but you're young enough that if you do accounting for a few years and want a change, you will have time to make one - and believe me, it will be easier to identify the change you truly want once you've worked in your career for a while and gained some confidence.
You've just got to get those demons under control or everything in your career will be like this. You think that you'll be happier if you just pursue X and have more money and prestige, but X will just make you miserable if it's not something you truly care about and it won't go well, and then you'll think you should do Y. If you have some success and confidence as an accountant in the next few years, you will feel better and then, if for some reason you still feel drawn to programming, you can look into it.
posted by Frowner at 6:25 AM on October 23, 2024 [9 favorites]
How do I know? First, I'm an accountant for whom it was not a passion or an initial career goal. Second, for a different set of reasons I too had the sense that I had missed both a passion career and a rich person career and I felt bad and spent too long pursuing too much education to try to square the passion/money circle. You can't make yourself feel good about yourself and your life by just playing whack-a-mole with your parents' remarks.
I mean consider - you were so worried about the degree and so miserable about it (and congratulations on getting it done!) and the minute you've got it, you're not happy and satisfied, you've just found a new way to feel that you need to do something else and a new reason that you aren't doing well enough. That's a problem that comes from how you've struggled and been wounded in life, not from your career.
For me, actually, talk therapy made a big big difference, but different things work for different people. I had a compulsion to relive/recreate some bad situations from my youth and could never rest, emotionally speaking, and somehow just talking to a therapist over and over about all that stuff let me mostly set it down. Am I totally 100% delighted by being an accountant instead of something else? No. Do I feel some envy for peers no smarter than me who have fancier jobs? Sure. But do those feelings consume my life or make me chronically unhappy? Not anymore!
I have a job that pays sufficient for my needs with people I tend to like at an institution whose culture is relatively congenial and I have great benefits. I focus on those things and remind myself of all the people who have it much worse and how I only compare myself to people doing better than me. I probably wouldn't be happy in just any random accounting job, so I would suggest that you ultimately identify and pursue a role in a congenial institution where you feel relatively good about the work you're doing - you might need to work somewhere random first, but this will help you identify what you really want.
You're not college-age young, IIRC, but you're young enough that if you do accounting for a few years and want a change, you will have time to make one - and believe me, it will be easier to identify the change you truly want once you've worked in your career for a while and gained some confidence.
You've just got to get those demons under control or everything in your career will be like this. You think that you'll be happier if you just pursue X and have more money and prestige, but X will just make you miserable if it's not something you truly care about and it won't go well, and then you'll think you should do Y. If you have some success and confidence as an accountant in the next few years, you will feel better and then, if for some reason you still feel drawn to programming, you can look into it.
posted by Frowner at 6:25 AM on October 23, 2024 [9 favorites]
Aside from the family dynamic -- and that is your primary problem, you wouldn't be asking this question if not for those internal pressures:
I'm a programmer and my primary software development activities for the past, gosh, seven years? has been writing and maintaining an Accounts Payable front-end for the software my company sells. All of our competitors (and even non-competitors that we're on friendly terms with) have their own Accounts Payable packages. Some of them were clearly written by programmers and not accountants. We spent a lot of time sitting with the accountants at our customers' offices figuring out how they do their work, in order to reproduce that in code.
However, this kind of job means your job will be programming with a little accounting, not accounting with a little programming. My point is that there's some significant overlap between "write code" and "do accounting".
The things I think an accountant might use programming for is to do their own data analysis, processing information, running reports, etc. Accounting consists of a lot of data, and data is what computers do best. In sort of a parallel: one of the programmers I hired had worked in GPS mapping and the reason I hired him is he explained the scripting and processing he wrote in order to better figure out missing or wrong map information in his data. He was never officially a programmer, he just used programming skills to make his work easier and that's why I hired him over people with Computer Science degrees.
So, to answer your initial question -- languages to learn if you're just doing basic data analysis are the ones you listed. They are very adhoc ways to analyze data in a handful of lines of code (or even a lot of code) that you can change and tweak on the fly or write a really quick little processor to test out. "Scripting" is more of what you're describing than full computer programming, not that there's a big difference other than that you get more control over the source code while you run it.
But -- the thing to be most optimistic about -- is that there aren't a lot of people who went to school for a degree in [thing] and then their actual career is doing the [thing]. That's not a sign of failure -- your own personal aptitudes will drive where your career leads you, not what you learned in classes. What you learned in class is a toolbox of skills to use in varying and hopefully interesting ways in whatever you decide to do next. Find a job that you want to do, not one that fits a label that your parents approve of.
You may think you'd be doing much better at it if you stuck with Computer Science, but really you have no idea. Your mother has wishful thinking; the ones you see on LinkedIn are survivor-bias (nobody unhappy with their jobs are saying so on Linkedin). You may have to dig a bit, but go look at others you went to school with and see that they're probably not working in their career and are doing fine.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:45 AM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
I'm a programmer and my primary software development activities for the past, gosh, seven years? has been writing and maintaining an Accounts Payable front-end for the software my company sells. All of our competitors (and even non-competitors that we're on friendly terms with) have their own Accounts Payable packages. Some of them were clearly written by programmers and not accountants. We spent a lot of time sitting with the accountants at our customers' offices figuring out how they do their work, in order to reproduce that in code.
However, this kind of job means your job will be programming with a little accounting, not accounting with a little programming. My point is that there's some significant overlap between "write code" and "do accounting".
The things I think an accountant might use programming for is to do their own data analysis, processing information, running reports, etc. Accounting consists of a lot of data, and data is what computers do best. In sort of a parallel: one of the programmers I hired had worked in GPS mapping and the reason I hired him is he explained the scripting and processing he wrote in order to better figure out missing or wrong map information in his data. He was never officially a programmer, he just used programming skills to make his work easier and that's why I hired him over people with Computer Science degrees.
So, to answer your initial question -- languages to learn if you're just doing basic data analysis are the ones you listed. They are very adhoc ways to analyze data in a handful of lines of code (or even a lot of code) that you can change and tweak on the fly or write a really quick little processor to test out. "Scripting" is more of what you're describing than full computer programming, not that there's a big difference other than that you get more control over the source code while you run it.
But -- the thing to be most optimistic about -- is that there aren't a lot of people who went to school for a degree in [thing] and then their actual career is doing the [thing]. That's not a sign of failure -- your own personal aptitudes will drive where your career leads you, not what you learned in classes. What you learned in class is a toolbox of skills to use in varying and hopefully interesting ways in whatever you decide to do next. Find a job that you want to do, not one that fits a label that your parents approve of.
You may think you'd be doing much better at it if you stuck with Computer Science, but really you have no idea. Your mother has wishful thinking; the ones you see on LinkedIn are survivor-bias (nobody unhappy with their jobs are saying so on Linkedin). You may have to dig a bit, but go look at others you went to school with and see that they're probably not working in their career and are doing fine.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:45 AM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
I've been experiencing deep bodily feelings of grief at wasting this opportunity and how it might have been a better avenue for me.
I think if you weren't feeling that way about this, you would find something else to feel that way about.
I've seen on LinkedIn how some people I was loosely friends with on the Comp Sci course are doing amazingly well in their careers. It is very painful
Meanwhile, friends I know who studied accounting are doing amazingly well. (As are various people who studied all manner of supposedly useless things.) And so many CS people I know have dealt with frequent layoffs, long job searches, constantly needing to learn new languages/platforms that sometimes they find interesting but sometimes they find soul-sucking, etc.
And those are the ones who actually enjoyed their degrees. Dealing with all that in a field you don't actually get any pleasure from sounds grim, not something to feel sweet aching regret about missing out on.
You can do a free or cheap online course in one of the 3 areas you listed. See if you enjoy it. If you do, great. If you don't, say "looks like I dodged that bullet, at least."
But really, I think you should start making it a serious point to learn how to stop chasing hypothetical better lives before you feel grounded and secure in the one you've actually got. Make it a goal to not let yourself set up a new goalpost until 2025 is over. Just constantly resist the urge. Focus on actually appreciating the good things you've got going right now, and making whatever changes in your non-work life that would make things even nicer. Give your brain an actual chance to rehab from the cycle of stress/avoidance that you seem addicted to. That's more than important enough to be a main priority.
posted by trig at 6:46 AM on October 23, 2024 [7 favorites]
I think if you weren't feeling that way about this, you would find something else to feel that way about.
I've seen on LinkedIn how some people I was loosely friends with on the Comp Sci course are doing amazingly well in their careers. It is very painful
Meanwhile, friends I know who studied accounting are doing amazingly well. (As are various people who studied all manner of supposedly useless things.) And so many CS people I know have dealt with frequent layoffs, long job searches, constantly needing to learn new languages/platforms that sometimes they find interesting but sometimes they find soul-sucking, etc.
And those are the ones who actually enjoyed their degrees. Dealing with all that in a field you don't actually get any pleasure from sounds grim, not something to feel sweet aching regret about missing out on.
You can do a free or cheap online course in one of the 3 areas you listed. See if you enjoy it. If you do, great. If you don't, say "looks like I dodged that bullet, at least."
But really, I think you should start making it a serious point to learn how to stop chasing hypothetical better lives before you feel grounded and secure in the one you've actually got. Make it a goal to not let yourself set up a new goalpost until 2025 is over. Just constantly resist the urge. Focus on actually appreciating the good things you've got going right now, and making whatever changes in your non-work life that would make things even nicer. Give your brain an actual chance to rehab from the cycle of stress/avoidance that you seem addicted to. That's more than important enough to be a main priority.
posted by trig at 6:46 AM on October 23, 2024 [7 favorites]
I haven't read through all the responses here, so probably somebody else has already pointed this out, but if you sat through a year of lectures in computer science and didn't enjoy it, coding might just not be your jam. Which is fine! The world needs accountants as well as programmers.
But if you are interested in it, I would say go ahead and get a normal accounting job, and try to see how/where it would actually be useful to be able to code. The best way to learn is to have an actual project that you are motivated to work on. Find some tedious process that you have to do manually, and figure out how to automate it.
I don't have specific advice on what resources are good for learning, but Python is a good place to start and there are a lot of threads on AskMe with suggestions on that front. Please don't think that you need a degree in computer science in order to become a programmer! I took a total of two courses in computer science at university and I'm now a software engineer. The key was finding places in my previous job where it was useful to have some coding ability, doing a little learning on my own, and building from there.
You can do it if you want to! But it's fine not to want to.
posted by number9dream at 6:56 AM on October 23, 2024 [2 favorites]
But if you are interested in it, I would say go ahead and get a normal accounting job, and try to see how/where it would actually be useful to be able to code. The best way to learn is to have an actual project that you are motivated to work on. Find some tedious process that you have to do manually, and figure out how to automate it.
I don't have specific advice on what resources are good for learning, but Python is a good place to start and there are a lot of threads on AskMe with suggestions on that front. Please don't think that you need a degree in computer science in order to become a programmer! I took a total of two courses in computer science at university and I'm now a software engineer. The key was finding places in my previous job where it was useful to have some coding ability, doing a little learning on my own, and building from there.
You can do it if you want to! But it's fine not to want to.
posted by number9dream at 6:56 AM on October 23, 2024 [2 favorites]
Just seconding number9dream-- it sounds like you don't have any takeaways from your Comp Sci year, but from the accountants I've seen, the tools that are most useful are data analysis tools-- largely that's PowerBI.
Essentially it's building dashboards for wider distribution (A regional manager can view a chart of sales $$ for the country, click in to an area to drill down to that geographic region, click again for a store etc).
If you're in an accounting job at a bigger firm, you'll probably be naturally exposed to it, with programming skills (Python, SQL, etc) you can do more behind that scenes that essentially become data-sources for that PowerBI dash.
But-- if you did a year of CompSci and it really sounds like you didn't enjoy it-- why go out of your way? Just get a job with the skills you have, and let your skills naturally grow to make your role more interesting and/or valuable. I can look around my friend groups and see both very successful accountants with zero programming knowledge, and very successful programmers with zero idea that a general ledger is.
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:11 AM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
Essentially it's building dashboards for wider distribution (A regional manager can view a chart of sales $$ for the country, click in to an area to drill down to that geographic region, click again for a store etc).
If you're in an accounting job at a bigger firm, you'll probably be naturally exposed to it, with programming skills (Python, SQL, etc) you can do more behind that scenes that essentially become data-sources for that PowerBI dash.
But-- if you did a year of CompSci and it really sounds like you didn't enjoy it-- why go out of your way? Just get a job with the skills you have, and let your skills naturally grow to make your role more interesting and/or valuable. I can look around my friend groups and see both very successful accountants with zero programming knowledge, and very successful programmers with zero idea that a general ledger is.
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:11 AM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
First, congratulations!!! Now, short but true story: back in 1975 toward the end of my Math/Computer Science college education the head of the college's computer center approached 2 of his students (myself included) to write a translator from RPG to COBOL because he didn't like the guy who knew RPG and wanted to get rid of him. So the two of us had to learn both languages (neither of which were part of our majors) and write a translator. I graduated at the time of the Arab oil embargo and the only way I got a job was my knowledge of COBOL. 45 years (and 4 employers) later I retired and here I sit typing this to you. NOTE: there is this thing called Artificial Intelligence which is slowly eating away at jobs that previously would have been done by programmers like me, so I would *NOT* assume that starting at this point in time would be a good time to become a programmer and look for such a job.
posted by forthright at 7:24 AM on October 23, 2024
posted by forthright at 7:24 AM on October 23, 2024
Congratulations from me too.
I work as a database engineer (having a degree in philosophy, so i know that the path between anyone's university life & their ultimate career is not a direct one) - and many of the databases that i build & manage have financial data in them. There are actually strong links & plenty of cross-over between accountancy & data analysis. There's a sweet spot that crosses over between those two fields, for people who are interested in both.
If that's you (which it doesn't need to be! accountancy is already a huge & valuable field in its own right! and no doubt you have plenty of non-work opportunities for fulfilment that you can pursue instead!) - then one easy way towards it is to find something that's tedious & long-winded & manual & error-prone when you currently do it in Excel, and (secretly, without telling your boss or creating any expectations around it) learn to create a macro that will do it for you. Boom, you're coding.
If that feels like fun, then someone already mentioned PowerBI as a data analysis toolset - behind that is SQL, which can also be fun & useful if you have access to a database that contains useful data that you want to summarise in interesting ways.
If those things have gone well, and your organisation is ever looking to implement financial management software - then maybe they have a slot in the project team for requirements analysis or as a tester. Then, you also have software implementation experience. I know a bunch of people who pivoted from that into an actual career in the software industry.
So - if you want to follow them - there are a few different valid & fruitful pathways from accountancy towards more tech-related roles. But, it has to be something that the actual autonomous adult you actually wants for its own sake, not because your mum still gives you grief about dropping out of King's College all those many years ago.
posted by rd45 at 7:45 AM on October 23, 2024 [2 favorites]
I work as a database engineer (having a degree in philosophy, so i know that the path between anyone's university life & their ultimate career is not a direct one) - and many of the databases that i build & manage have financial data in them. There are actually strong links & plenty of cross-over between accountancy & data analysis. There's a sweet spot that crosses over between those two fields, for people who are interested in both.
If that's you (which it doesn't need to be! accountancy is already a huge & valuable field in its own right! and no doubt you have plenty of non-work opportunities for fulfilment that you can pursue instead!) - then one easy way towards it is to find something that's tedious & long-winded & manual & error-prone when you currently do it in Excel, and (secretly, without telling your boss or creating any expectations around it) learn to create a macro that will do it for you. Boom, you're coding.
If that feels like fun, then someone already mentioned PowerBI as a data analysis toolset - behind that is SQL, which can also be fun & useful if you have access to a database that contains useful data that you want to summarise in interesting ways.
If those things have gone well, and your organisation is ever looking to implement financial management software - then maybe they have a slot in the project team for requirements analysis or as a tester. Then, you also have software implementation experience. I know a bunch of people who pivoted from that into an actual career in the software industry.
So - if you want to follow them - there are a few different valid & fruitful pathways from accountancy towards more tech-related roles. But, it has to be something that the actual autonomous adult you actually wants for its own sake, not because your mum still gives you grief about dropping out of King's College all those many years ago.
posted by rd45 at 7:45 AM on October 23, 2024 [2 favorites]
I've seen on LinkedIn how some people I was loosely friends with on the Comp Sci course are doing amazingly well in their careers
I see those updates too, btw - and i just roll my eyes & keep scrolling. It's mainly bullshit.
posted by rd45 at 7:48 AM on October 23, 2024 [2 favorites]
I see those updates too, btw - and i just roll my eyes & keep scrolling. It's mainly bullshit.
posted by rd45 at 7:48 AM on October 23, 2024 [2 favorites]
My current boss has an accounting degree and we develop software. he's been the best boss I've had, because he can speak accounting language to the money people to you know, get our team money to develop stuff.
Also it may be different in Europe, but in the US accounting is a high income career not terribly different from software.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:05 AM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
Also it may be different in Europe, but in the US accounting is a high income career not terribly different from software.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:05 AM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
This question is not truly about accounting or computer science. The question is "How do I reduce my anguish from escapist fantasies?"
One method is by changing your comparison set. Instead of comparing to your old classmates who are posting successful-looking LinkedIn updates, do you have classmates who have died or have terminal diseases?
Another method is to identify that you are seeking a mindset (e.g. peace, contentment). If you had a computer science job but your boss was cruel and you were woken up at 3am every week to fix the servers, you still wouldn't have peace. You would be engaging in an escapist fantasy of a better CS job with a kinder boss and no on-call. Since your goal is the peace/joy and not the actual job, you can practice ways of being peaceful such as avoiding social media, taking good care of your health, going for walks in nature, etc.
posted by vienna at 9:24 AM on October 23, 2024 [7 favorites]
One method is by changing your comparison set. Instead of comparing to your old classmates who are posting successful-looking LinkedIn updates, do you have classmates who have died or have terminal diseases?
Another method is to identify that you are seeking a mindset (e.g. peace, contentment). If you had a computer science job but your boss was cruel and you were woken up at 3am every week to fix the servers, you still wouldn't have peace. You would be engaging in an escapist fantasy of a better CS job with a kinder boss and no on-call. Since your goal is the peace/joy and not the actual job, you can practice ways of being peaceful such as avoiding social media, taking good care of your health, going for walks in nature, etc.
posted by vienna at 9:24 AM on October 23, 2024 [7 favorites]
Just want to point out that you’ve had a major milestone success, and your mother denigrates your achievement by choosing this moment to muse about what might have been.
posted by hollyholly at 11:38 AM on October 23, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by hollyholly at 11:38 AM on October 23, 2024 [6 favorites]
A CS degree is not guarantee of career or financial success. You can be miserable and badly treated in a programming job as much as any office job, though perhaps the salary floor is a bit higher than some. There's an alternate world where you pushed through your CS degree and hated it the whole time, and hated the jobs that came from it too. It happens! You won't hear those stories very much on LinkedIn though.
posted by BungaDunga at 12:52 PM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by BungaDunga at 12:52 PM on October 23, 2024 [1 favorite]
indeed, versus linkedin, is less social media, more functional: no need to log in, you can sort in a variety of ways, & shows thousands of accountancy jobs on your islands, etc.. offering that to reduce the pain you express feeling.
studying sql sounds like a good thing even just to tell your mum you're also doing while you're in job search mode :) please do listen to the good advice & thoughts people offer here about taking care of yourself. good luck!
posted by HearHere at 11:14 PM on October 23, 2024
studying sql sounds like a good thing even just to tell your mum you're also doing while you're in job search mode :) please do listen to the good advice & thoughts people offer here about taking care of yourself. good luck!
posted by HearHere at 11:14 PM on October 23, 2024
Your mother probably has the incorrect idea that software development is surefire path to wealth. Most UK software developers are making OK professional money churning out enterprise software: custom code for large businesses that's ugly but just about works.
Not that many have really high incomes. Those that do have generally either passed super-competitive interview processes at big name companies, or are working in the City doing financial software for investment banks. There's a lot of pressure, a lot of burnout, and it's usually not that fun. You're either a tiny cog in a huge machine, or being screamed at to get it done NOW under huge pressure.
Also whenever there is a recession, lots of businesses just stop developing new software. The software doesn't exist yet, so it's easy to cut the budget. So the software development business is prone to layoffs and long periods when it's hard to find work. That doesn't happen as much in accountancy, where a large fraction of businesses can't just decide all at once to not do any accounting for a year or two.
If you do want to get into the software development industry for some reason, if you get a couple of years experience in the accounting industry, you might be better off seeking other careers in accounting software. You could look at being a QA doing software testing (quality assurance). Or you could be a PO (Product Owner) who liases between the client and the software development team to decide what to do. In both cases there is a demand for people who know something about computer science, and something about the customer domain (accounting). But you would probably need to get some accounting experience first. From QA or PO you can potentially jump to a management track within the software industry.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:01 AM on October 24, 2024
Not that many have really high incomes. Those that do have generally either passed super-competitive interview processes at big name companies, or are working in the City doing financial software for investment banks. There's a lot of pressure, a lot of burnout, and it's usually not that fun. You're either a tiny cog in a huge machine, or being screamed at to get it done NOW under huge pressure.
Also whenever there is a recession, lots of businesses just stop developing new software. The software doesn't exist yet, so it's easy to cut the budget. So the software development business is prone to layoffs and long periods when it's hard to find work. That doesn't happen as much in accountancy, where a large fraction of businesses can't just decide all at once to not do any accounting for a year or two.
If you do want to get into the software development industry for some reason, if you get a couple of years experience in the accounting industry, you might be better off seeking other careers in accounting software. You could look at being a QA doing software testing (quality assurance). Or you could be a PO (Product Owner) who liases between the client and the software development team to decide what to do. In both cases there is a demand for people who know something about computer science, and something about the customer domain (accounting). But you would probably need to get some accounting experience first. From QA or PO you can potentially jump to a management track within the software industry.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:01 AM on October 24, 2024
You might get a job where some sort of computer skills are useful, but the likelihood of picking the right sort of skill in advance is low. If you want to pursue it, learning most any general purpose programming language - Python in your list - will acquaint you with how computers work.
It's much more likely, even is small companies, that all the data needed by an accountant is held in an accounting system already programmed to create all the reports you need, and which has a report generator with which you can create new reports if needed.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:59 AM on October 24, 2024
It's much more likely, even is small companies, that all the data needed by an accountant is held in an accounting system already programmed to create all the reports you need, and which has a report generator with which you can create new reports if needed.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:59 AM on October 24, 2024
« Older How to start dating as my whole self, or move on | How to avoid disordered eating during... Newer »
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
Yooooooo, false.
Your dad bullied you into a career path you didn't want to be on, you achieved in spite of it, and now you want to let your mother bully you into an additional career path? Girl stop. Please stop. You need to figure out what YOU want out of life.
Get a fine, boring job that you are currently qualified for. Earn some paychecks. Spend your money on personal pursuits that don't contribute in any way to your career: take yourself out to eat, go to the theater, buy yourself the cute shoes, take a weekend trip to a new city. You have achieved a huge personal career goal; your next goal should be all about finding out what kind of person you'd like to be. Not what kind of worker.
posted by phunniemee at 5:53 AM on October 23, 2024 [27 favorites]