I was studying for the accounting exam tomorrow and got too bored so I did some Internet surfing. A random search revealed the fact in the US, the average accountant makes about $40,000 a year and the average programmer makes about $50,000 a year, which is as much as 25% more than that of accountant (data from salary.com). At the same time, Hong Kong students are competing so hard for the business degrees or professional accounting degrees. I can only say it is a living proof that people will always follow the hype no matter what history has taught us. People seem to have forgotten all about the IT bubble when almost every new born millionaire was doing IT businesses.
OK so people have freedom of choices and maybe the folks at ACCA and friends aren’t talking their asses off when making statements such as “accounting will be the most prominent and in-demand industry for years to come”. Let’s talk about the real contents involved. In my entire textbook Hospitality Financial Accounting, the typical day-to-day job of an accountant seems to be drawing tables (journals as the call them) like this:
| Date |
Account title and Explanation |
Ref. |
Debit |
Credit |
| Sept. 5 |
Merchandise Inventory |
|
1,500 |
|
| |
Accounts Payable |
|
|
1,500 |
| 8 |
Accounts Payable |
|
200 |
|
| |
Merchandise Inventory |
|
|
200 |
I have nothing against this kind of tables really, but what bugs me is that this is the gist of an University course. Frankly, a 10 year old can learn to do these kinds of tables given proper education and some time to learn. Why do tertiary education students bother with these labor paper work? What’s more, I don’t see a single reason why this kinds of things are not done by computer, but paid employees.
With that said, let’s compare the ordinary “output” of the ordinary
programmer:
public void mirror() {
mirror(root);
}
private void mirror(Node node) {
if (node != null) {
// do the sub-trees
mirror(node.left);
mirror(node.right);
// swap the left/right pointers
Node temp = node.left;
node.left = node.right;
node.right = temp;
}
}
Alright this is not a programmer vs accountant topic but the mere fact that a 10 year old kid is not likely to be able to comprehend the above code right away makes programming immediately looks more “professional” than “professional accounting”. And for your information, the smartest computer program in the world probably cannot produce any code like the above level (which is already not very complicated).
All that aside, as of writing of this post, I am a business student who is likely to be doing the table stuff in the future. But this has got me thinking, how can someone possibly love this kind of works? If not, then I’m going into deep trouble: spending life doing things I don’t like.
In my opinions, why have people grown to pursue boring jobs like accounting instead of more fun work like design and science? This is society at work guys. The society, either your family, television advertisements have made us not want to adventure. Now that seem reasonable that most people will want to pursue the safest career out there, “the career that is to stay in-demand for the years to com”. Think about it, is the very same reason you are pursuing your “career” (if you have any definite one), or are you really pursuing your dream?
Enough complaint, time to go back to my study for the accounting exam tomorrow…
