Which major is better, Accounting vs Finance?
When it comes to choosing your road into higher education, the FAME subjects are immensely popular. Finance, accounting, management, and economics number amongst the most studied courses, and many attribute this to the lucrative career doors that they help to open.
The first two cover a lot of similar topics, and would-be students often struggle to pick between them. So how do they compare?
The primary difference careers financial accounting
At undergraduate level and below, it will often be possible for those with an interest in FAME topics to complete a joint accounting and finance degree, and this will stand them in good stead for many careers.
However, most of those who study the two will choose to specialise in one further down the line, and this is because they each have a slightly different focus. For accounting, this is reasonably narrow, covering professional principles and processes, and the management of money. Finance, on the other hand, is more concerned with financial strategy and control.
Career prospects
The two degrees also offer slightly different prospects. The former provides a foundation for specialised accounting careers and other related forms of employment. It tends to ground students in the analysation and utilisation of financial information, covering everything from basic bookkeeping to the management of balance sheets and income statements.
A finance degree is catered more towards careers in the financial services sector, suiting students who wish to enter industries such as business, banking, and consultancy. The topics covered will usually focus more on the stimulation of growth, as opposed to the recording of past and present expenditure.
Specialisations
The two degrees will give students the skills to specialise in different areas. For accounting, this may be auditing, tax, international business, management, risk assessment, or even forensic.
For finance students, the skills gained will set them up for specialisation in different subjects, such as corporate finance, financial evaluation, the financial markets, econometrics, and much more.
Reasons to study accounting and finance at degree level
FAME subjects are incredibly popular at the undergraduate level, ‘with around 25 percent of U.K. students enrolled in related programs’. Challenging, interesting, and rewarding to study, they offer many a fulfilling university experience and strong career prospects after graduation. The high demand for qualified young professionals to fill the ranks of these industries means that a job at the end is almost guaranteed and the prospect of lucrative employment is incredibly high when compared to other sectors.
Embark on the careers financial accounting to success in the accounting or financial sectors today with Mont Rose College in Ilford.
