 Hello, everyone. This is Professor Farhad. In this session, I'm going to talk to you about the fifth year as an accounting student. What are your options? What should you know about that fifth year? What can you do to improve your chances of success in your accounting career? Now, first of all, if you're not aware of this, the AICPA, they want the CPAs to be on par with other professions such as lawyers and doctors and architects. Therefore, they want you to have 150 credits. And all jurisdiction at this point, they want you to have all 150 credits. The first misconception about this 150 credits, oftentimes, students think that they do have to have a master's degree. That's not the case. 150 credit, you don't have to have a master's degree. If you want to, that's an option. And that's what we're going to be going over today. What are your options as an accounting student, as a fifth year accounting student? And here, I'm not talking about the fifth year because you partied for the first four years in college. So let's go ahead and get going. The first option that students undertake, and it's a very popular option, is to get a master's in accountancy. So I'm going to talk about the pros and the cons of each option. What is the pros for a master's in accountancy? It's going to give you a good theoretical foundation if you're interested in accounting, especially if you want to be a teacher. I went for my master's in accountancy. It helped me a lot when I started to teach because I learned the theoretical foundation. If that's what you like to do, that's a good option. Now, a master's in accountancy may or may not help you with your CPA preparation. When I went to school to Bloomsburg University when I was there, those courses that I took for my master's in accountancy did not help me for my CPA. They were theoretical. You had to write papers, so this is the cons. It's not going to help you with your CPA. It may, some graduate schools, they do help you, but for preparing for the CPA, take a CPA course. You're better off taking a CPA course. Now, the cons for this option is expensive, and it may not add value to you as much. It may or may not add value, so you have to consider this. So you might be writing papers for the whole year, so it may not be as beneficial. The second option is also a very popular option is to minor when you're undergraduate to minor, and many, many students minor in finance, which is I don't agree with that option. You don't have to minor in finance or they minor in economics. I don't believe minoring in finance or minoring in economics. It's going to add that much value to you if you are an accounting student or if you already passed the CPA exam. Once you pass the CPA exam, you're going to learn everything you need to know about accounting, I'm sorry, about economics and finance. So you don't need to waste your time majoring in finance or economics. So the question is, what should you major in? Well, here's some potential options that I suggest you do. Okay? Something in maybe information system, something in data science. And if you don't have data science, study statistics, then take a data science course on one of those MOOCs, the massive open online courses. Since you have a statistical background, you can easily take that MOOCs and get some minor in data science. What are some other options? Cyber security, networking, if you're good and mad, get a minor in programming, computer forensics, anything that's IT sounding because the future is IT. And believe it or not, publishers, accounting textbook publishers, they are starting to integrate big data under financial accounting 101. Recently, I attended a seminar that integrate big data into their accounting course, which I'll have another recording about this because big data or data science is the future. Therefore, get a minor that's going to help you down the road in your career as an auditor, as a professional, as a consultant, as an insurance service consultant, whatever you are going to be, you're going to need technology and big data. The third option is MBA. I'm going to talk about the pros and the cons. The MBA might be prestigious, putting those three letters behind your name. I disagree. I believe the MBA becoming a commodity. A lot of people have MBAs at loss its value. Now, I'm not saying MBAs are no good. Just wait maybe five, seven years into your career, then go for your MBA. At that point, you should know exactly what you are doing. Maybe you like marketing, get an MBA in marketing. Maybe you want to be in finance and banking and whatever major you want to be in supply chain, then the MBA would help you tremendously. Also, the MBA is expensive and it's time consuming. It's not going to help you that much for your CPA exam. That's the MBA option. The other option is the other two options is the community college option, which is I call the path of lease resistance. What is this option? This option is not expensive at all. Basically, at your local community college, if you already got your accounting courses, just take courses that you like. Now, you can take advantage of this. Maybe take courses in Excel and access and technology, something that's going to benefit you or you can take courses in sociology, philosophy, history, something that's of interest to you that's going to make it easy for you to study and learn the material. Also, you can do, you can strategically select your courses, select the right teacher, the right course, and it will be an easy cruising through those credits. That's another option for you. The cons of this option, you don't get any certificate, you don't get any type of a degree, but if you want to just complete your 150 credit, that's the easiest way to do it. The fifth option, also a community college option, but here what you do, you attend a community college, but you attend a credit certificate program. What are some of the options? Let me show you. You could have cybersecurity. Many community colleges, what I teach, they have a cybersecurity program, and if I have time, I would like to learn about cybersecurity, but I don't have the time to do it, otherwise I would. Database management, and this option here, what's the difference between this option and the minor at your university? It's a cheaper option. A community college, generally speaking, is one-third of a state school, and if you go to a private school, it's maybe one-fifth or one-sixth of your expenses. So it's a cheap option. Now the only thing cons that I can see about this option, some people, which I also disagree with this, they look down on a community college, I don't. I went to a community college initially. I teach at a community college. I have many students that are very successful, that started at a community college. So that's another option for you. I gave you those five options, just you know you have all these options. Things I want you to be aware of, you can always feel to disagree with me. Of course, you could type in in the text below. Also, be aware of for-profit proprietary schools. Don't go for those schools, for-profit proprietary. If you don't know what they are, I'm just going to tell you, for-profit proprietary schools, avoid them at all costs, because they cost that much and they don't give you that much value. Also, make other recommendations. If you think there's a six option, I thought about those five options just to let you know what your options are. But you have a six option by all means, please share it with us. I will be interested in knowing what you have to say and make sure to subscribe to my YouTube, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm always here to help. Please share my videos, share the channel. It's free. That's how you can help me and you can help me for free as well. That's not costing you anything. Thank you very much and I'm always here to help and always, always, always study hard for your CPA exam and see you on the other side of success. Good luck.