From summertime to clocking in for composition notebooks and Muji pens — Fall future planning is here! Let’s figure out which classes you should (or will) take that will set the foundation for a career in accounting.
While many believe high school doesn’t teach you any real-world skills, we don’t necessarily agree. We’re here to change your perspective on how your classes teach valuable skills. Get ready to have your mind blown. 🤯
Introduction to Accounting
Skills Learned: Basic Terminology and Formulas
If we’re being honest, the best class you could take in high school to prepare you for an accounting major and an accounting career would be an introduction to accounting class. If your school offers one, you should definitely look into taking it. This can give you a competitive edge when you enter your first college accounting class and find that the material is not unfamiliar to you. Your freshman year of college is a time of major transition, so you’ll thank yourself later for anything you can do now to make it easier. Don’t have an intro to accounting class? Get a vocabulary crash course with us.
Public Speaking
Skills Learned: Communication, Presentation
One of the most rewarding parts about being an accountant is helping non-financial experts get it. You know that feeling of achievement that comes with making complex financial information digestible, concise, and easy to understand? Well, maybe not yet… but you will! You see, one of the biggest myths is that accounting isn’t a people-centered profession. We’re here to set the record straight: across every facet of accounting, you’ll be interacting with people, whether they are on your team, in another department, a client, or financial institutions.
Public speaking classes are usually tailored towards learning how to present, but at its core, it’s about effective communication. This comes across in more than just giving presentations. For example, as you grow in your role and start managing others, you’ll need to communicate the instructions for assignments in a way that facilitates the outcome you’re looking for. When you provide feedback to peers, you’ll want to make sure your comments are clear so they can understand you and easily address the changes. If you’re trying to acquire funding for your client who’s an entrepreneur, communicating their financial projections confidentially and knowledgeably will ensure the investors feel good about financing the project.
English
Skills Learned: Critical Thinking, Analysis, Storytelling
Accounting is a job that deals with finances, but numbers on a page mean nothing without the ability to analyze them and find out the bigger story they’re telling. That’s part of why we stress that math is not the most essential skill involved in accounting. You have to make those numbers meaningful to your clients who might not have a background or understanding of finances. Decoding what’s written on paper to have actual meaning is something you do all the time in your English classes. Every time you read a passage, you have to decipher the message, why it matters, and the larger implications for the plot, or even other world events if you’re reading non-fiction. The same thing happens in accounting; you have to analyze financial performance through different perspectives — from profit margins to return on investment — and then decide how it impacts the bigger picture.
Computer Science
Skills Learned: Coding, Coding Languages
These days, most accountants use technology in some capacity in their roles. There are some professionals like Brian and Jason, whose accounting career aligns with the tech industry, and there are other accountants who just use tech to support their daily tasks. Some accountants use tech through computer programs like Excel or programming languages like Python, R, or SQL. These programs reduce the menial tasks of calculating and logging data while also increasing efficiency by limiting human error. Now, rather than sourcing a programmer to code accounting functions for you, wouldn’t it be so much cooler — and marketable — to be able to say you can code these yourself?
In a bustling job market, it’s always helpful to stand out from the crowd. What better way than to show up at your first accounting interview and say: “I already have experience with that tool.” Putting these types of technical skills on your resume might even make it easier to get the interview in the first place.
Foreign Language
Skills Learned: Speaking, Writing, Listening in a Foreign Language
Depending on your role and your specialty as an accountant, you can travel from coast to coast or country to country. Learning to be business proficient — if not fluent — in multiple languages offers you a massive competitive advantage as you prepare to enter the job market in a few years. High school is the perfect time to take your foreign language studies seriously. In just a few short years, you could have the skills necessary to conduct a client meeting in France with a luxury designer about how they can streamline costs or use these same skills to socialize with the locals and find the best non-touristy jazz clubs.
And although these classes can help jumpstart your career in accounting while you’re in high school, there’s value in continuing them in college. What electives you decide to take outside of your accounting major can give you more perspective on the world around you. Being able to talk about Hispanic American History or Fashion & Sustainability can be great conversation starters and help you form connections easily with clients and colleagues. Use this new year as an opportunity to look at your academic and professional journey with a fresh perspective. You just might find yourself already on the path to a great career in accounting!
