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Hello,
I am a college student preparing for the job search. My GPA is my weak point as I work quite a lot during the school year and was a late switch to accounting and have been taking 3 or 4 accounting courses per semester which has been an immense workload, so realistically I will need to do something out of the ordinary to land a position that gets my career started in the right direction. I have a great understanding of the basics and the normal balances, ect, but have difficulty finding enough time to study all the parts of the pension worksheet, ect in a more advanced course. I have been considering studying for an exam this summer to have something extra to put on my resume. I have decent experience as a finance assistant and a bookkeeper but would like a little more. One option I have been considering is studying and sitting for the CMA exam this summer to have passing both parts on my resume. Another option I have been considering is sitting for the Special Enrollment Examination to earn my EA. Starting off in public accounting seems like a long shot, so I was more so thinking of starting my career in private doing some kind of job below a staff accountant position that could later lead to being a staff accountant such as some kind of cash reconciliation job or something with accounts payable or receivable, ect. The area of the country I am in does have some manufacturing companies such as Caterpillar and Bobcat so that is where passing the CMA would come in handy. I am definitely interested in doing seasonal tax at H & R block my last year of college and then trying to get a job doing seasonal tax in public at some point in the future after that, so that is where the EA would come in handy. In the long run, spending money on CMA materials could be considered the better investment because once you get your CPA you could say there is no point to an EA, however you have to keep in mind the purpose of what I am doing and that is to add something to my resume to make up for what I expect to be a 2.7 overall and 2.9/3.0 accounting GPA by the time of spring recruiting next year. If realistically I will be a better fit for a cash reconciliation and/or payables and receivables job with my experience (petty cash accounts, bank recs, payables and receivables, recording payments, advanced excel with pivot tables and data validation, month end close recs) than maybe the EA would serve its purpose and not be a bad investment. I’d be able to put an actual certification on my resume instead of just passing a test and while I could be wrong, the types of jobs I would be looking for would not be as GPA dependent as some of the other jobs out there. Some feedback on that would be appreciated. The reason I am interested in seasonal tax is because I am interested in financial planning and no business decision is made without tax considerations. It could be useful down the line. And I am interested in the CMA because some of the knowledge could be useful for financial planning as well. Any thoughts? I do not want to try to cram studying for both in this summer and then not pass anything. I would rather go for just the EA or just the CMA and pass. An entire summer’s worth of studying will probably be sufficient. Any suggestions? Which one should I go for?
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