[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I am graduating with my BS Accounting in three years (20 years old atm) with no public accounting internships. I was wondering if I should do a Masters in Taxation or MBA at my small private school (Goldey-Beacom College). Though I need 150 credit hours guaranteed to pursue my CPA. I have done 3 internships in (Fund Accounting, Private Accounting, Treasury). I am interviewing with a lot of companies hope I hear back sometime 🙁

[CPYAYYY]

If you have the cash flow to get a masters go for it! For me personally,,,,,it's 20-40k that could be spent elsewhere…I'd just do online classes at foothill to meet the 150 mark. Online and cheap.

[Anonymous]

Kiran89, The masters is only 14k at my current school.

[DoubleBogey]

If you're dead set on working in Tax forever then a Master's of Tax may be right for you. It would be bizarre if you were to try to change over to audit with a tax master's. MBA is super generic. But, a professor told me to pursue the MBA because: “The people hiring you think it's important because they have it”.

[El]

I always recommend working 3-5 years before going for a MBA. The MBA is really only valuable for the connections so I would only consider a top 30 MBA programs because they have the best alumni resources / job placements with higher starting salaries.

I know a lot of people that have used an MBA to get that elusive promotion (internally or externally) or for a career change in a different field (accounting to finance) or industry (wall street to tech) because an internship helped them make that leap.

[Anonymous]

Hello Ali,

I have a Masters in taxation. For me, it made sense to do it since I was able to finish it and my undergrad degree in less than the 4 years my scholarships ran for. I'm glad I have it and I don't feel that I wasted much time (had 151 hours when it was all said and done). However, I think the CPA license is worth much more than a masters degree when you're working in public accounting. A masters in tax helped me a lot on REG and some in my real jobs, but it isn't needed to do either one. So, if you're hell-bent on a masters, sure go for it. If you can reach 150 hours other ways, I would definitely look into that as well.

Gonna agree with @El that a MBA is worth most if obtained after a few years of experience and at a top school. I probably wouldn't recommend doing that at a small school with no work experience. I'm sure there are people that will disagree with this, but it is my opinion as well.

[Author]

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