OK… got a bit of a conundrum here. Life has just thrown Astrogirl and I another curve ball, and we’re trying to figure out what to do…
Short version: AG and I were planning to go to the US this winter to settle down and get married… in the mean time, she has been working a temp job with a professor.
So, the professor has offered her the opportunity to go to graduate school at his university for free :eek: if she works for him during the time she is in school!
YOW! FREE grad school!
So… we’re currently considering what to do. Should she jump on it? Say “Thanks, but no thanks.”? Well, that’s nothing that you guys can really help with… however, there is this:
IF she decides to stay in Korea and go to grad school (at which time I’ll have to decide if I’m staying as well, or going to the US to await her…), should she study finance or MIS (Management Information Systems?)? She’s interested in both, but wants to study the one that will pay the best when she gets out of school and goes to work… Also, what are the job opportunities in the US for these fields?
She asked me these questions during dinner tonight… Paint me clueless! I’m a Lit. major! Give me a poem, and I’ll analyse the hell out of it… but ask me about finance VS. MIS, and I’m looking to change the subject as soon as possible.
Any opinions?
[sup]I hope I made that clear, as dinner included not only conversation, but a fair amount of Soju as well…[/sup]
Well, as a MIS guy, my advice is, of course, FINANCE. While MIS pays well, you have to keep up with everything new FOREVER. And, here in the New York area, things are REALLY tough right now. Not a lot of jobs available. Figures, I get into computers and then all jobs dry up.
Finance is probably a little easier to get a job in, like Omnipresent said. However, if she can, she should take a couple courses from whichever discipline she doesn’t decide to study so that she has a little background.
Where will you ultimately settle? The US? If so, check into the Finance program. Studying the rules of Korean finance won’t do her any good at all. Programming is more univesally applicable.
This is just me, but the offer itself seems suspicious. You both sure this isn’t some scheme to have her “pay for school” in some other form of “currency”, if you catch my drift?
Finance offers more job opportunities and a good wage. MIS can do but at the moment is more dependent upon the state of the economy (it’s always IT bods that get the heave-ho first from struggling companies, not the finance types). I’d recommend she does what she’s more interested in, since there’s no point being paid well to do something you hate, but finance probably has the edge in the range of roles and in transferable skills. The best-paid MIS people specialise, which inevitably carries the eventual risk of skills obsolescence.
Frankly, if without this offer the two of you would definitlly, no reservations or second thoughts, without a doubt, be moving back, then I say thank the man very nicely for his offer and move on back. Grad school is not so expensive that this is a once in a life time opportunity, especially if it is neither a carreer nor a school she feels especially impassioned about. If you kinda want to stay in Korea, and this is a good excuse, then stay. If you want to come home, don’t count the cost of tuition. And if you two have different ideas about where you want to settle eventually and are both hoping deep down that this is a way to avoid having that fight for another couple years, then go ahead and have that fight.
Woah, I thought this read “Fiance or MIS?” I was wondering if that was a new acronym, something along the lines of SO, and wondered what it could stand for.
Thanks all for the opinions! They will be relayed to AG, and I may be back with more questions…
To clear a couple of things up:
This had occurred to us as well… she doesn’t know this professor too well, yet… so it IS possible. If that turned out to be the case, however, it would be quite easy for her to simply quit and go to the US.
We both are more than ready to get out of Korea (for several reasons; none of which are germane to this particular little problem…). Your point that grad. school isn’t so expensive that this won’t be her only shot to go is well taken. It will just be more difficult for her to do so later if we have to pay for it ourselves.
AG has already been studying finance on her own, by taking courses offered at private schools here… so that’s probably the direction she’ll go (whether it’s here or in the US). One question, though, for the finance people: ARE American finance and Korean finance that different? Will a degree/certificate earned here be worthless in the US? (OK… that’s two… sorry…)
Caveat: I have never dealt with Korean accounting rules so I cannot compare/contrast those with US GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). I currently deal with U.S., Canadian and Australian accounting principles. Except for a few differences, they all handle things the same way. In other words, any differences between Korean GAAP and U.S. GAAP can easily be learned and handled differently.
Actually, experience with accounting for a different country could be valuable to a company with dealings in both the U.S. and Korea.
The value of her degree would be determined by where she went to work. I would think her degree would be no different than a U.S. degree if she were to work for a private company.
I do not know the AICPA’s requirement for sitting for the CPA exam coming from a non-U.S. college. I am sure there is some type of “exchange program” and she would probably have to jump through some extra hoops in order to take the test but it should not be out of the question.
Of course, while passing the CPA exam is a nice achievement, it might not be necessary depending on what she wants to do. I have worked in the private sector since I graduated college. I passed the CPA exam but have never NEEDED the certification for my job. Though, I do not know if it helped me get my “foot in the door” or not.
As for the finance job market, things were quite nice in the St. Louis area up until a year or two ago. If you were not satisified with your job, it was not much of a problem getting hired by a different company. Things have dried up somewhat but not totally. It has made the job search process a more difficult and less certain.
I too passed the CPA exam, but since I went to work in the Finance department as an analyst, never received my CPA certificate due to lack of applicable work experience.
I specifically majored in accounting for my undergrad work because I knew I’d be employable upon graduation. I think it’s a pretty good field to have a degree in.
However, MIS ain’t too shabby as well. Both are certainly areas that probably IMHO have the most marketability, so either choice will be a good one, not a bad one.
So it sounds like the bigger fish to fry is whether or not you’ll stay in Korea and take the offer.
By the way, it could be possible that the prof is referring to tuition remission. Many universities here in the US have that - if you’re an employee you can take classes for free (or at least at a substantial discount). It may be an offer on the up and up after all.
Best of luck in figuring this out. Lots of big decisions!
I can only relate my own experience: Degree in Financial Economics, Minor in Business. I went to work for an Insurance company working with retirement products and got my Series 6 and 26 but ended up moving to IT because the salaries were way higher. I now deal exclusively with computers. In the long run I think you might make more in Finance if you happen to be a really good broker/analyst or get into upper management. If you are not one of the stellar performers the salary outlook for Finance is lower than MIS (IMO). (Sweeping generalization - of course exceptions apply)
Now I work with computers and from my experience MIS folks don’t earn as much as the Computer Science majors. This is one of the odd fields there the workers often earn more that the managers and for the most part MIS means management, not programming.
In the long term I think finance offers more potential for financial reward but with much greater risk.