so you're thinking of studying accountancy
at university well there's loads of things that you need to know before going that aren't
common knowledge so make sure that you watch all the way to the end of this video to get
all of the knowledge that you need to know before studying at university hi my name is
neil bruce i'm a fourth year accountancy student and i study at the university of dundee and i have
less than a week left in my entire accountancy degree so i thought i'd make a video that would
describe all of the things that i feel you need to know before you study accountancy at university
so let's get into them so point number one is to not be lulled into a false sense of security in
first year now this one definitely applies to you if you've studied accountancy at sixth form or
at college or in higher in scotland so if you fall into this category then first year is gonna seem
really easy and it's gonna be quite a shock to you when you go into second year and start covering
new material because all the stuff in first year as i've said it seems really easy you don't need
to study as much and then you get into second year and you're working on new stuff and it gets really
really complicated really really quickly and it's a lot to catch up on if you aren't studying
regularly throughout the semesters i definitely had this personally i studied accountancy at
higher level in school and then i went into first year and i was in the classes and i was answering
all the questions finding it relatively easy and then i got into second year and i had
absolutely no idea what was going on make sure that you're studying really hard in first
year just to get used to that kind of lifestyle so that when you get into second year it's not
like diving in at the deep end straight away so my second point is that it's more essay-based
than maths based so as i mentioned at the start i'm a fourth year and i'm currently halfway
through my exams and all the exams pretty much are essay-based and then a little bit of maths on
the side and then you have to sort of describe the maths that you're doing so again going off my own
experience i did accountancy because i was pretty good at maths in school and so i thought that that
would be a great next step that would be a great way to use my mathematical ability would be to
go into something like accountancy however it's definitely a good idea to brush up on your english
skills before you do accounting at uni because as i mentioned it is more essay-based and it's a lot
of getting research getting analytical data and putting into words for reports and research-based
essays so yeah that's most of the exams and that is something that you definitely need to know
just before we get on to the next tips make sure that you subscribe to the channel and like the
video because that would really mean a lot to me and let's get into the next point so number
three is that once you've finished your degree you're actually not a qualified chartered
accountant yet and this is something that i feel like not a lot of people knew when they went
into their accountancy degrees you still need to do like three years of qualified exams after with
the professional bodies such as sema or icas or acca because as i mentioned you're not a chartered
accountant when you leave university and i have been warned by my lecturers that these are going
to be a lot harder than the exams that you do at university so that is definitely something to keep
in mind so the last two points of this video kind of tie in quite nicely so the first of these is
that all the graduate positions require a 2-1 or better so whether you're applying to the big four
or just a smaller accountancy firm every single graduate scheme that i've seen requires a 2-1 to
be admitted into it so that's an average of a b or better on every single exam throughout third
and fourth year and as i mentioned this point ties in really well with the final point which
is that the graduate job market is really really competitive for accountants if you think about
the amount of people that are doing accountancy at university versus the scarce number of jobs
that are available in graduate schemes after you graduate it is crazy like for example for me i've
got about 40 people in my accounting degree just at dundee alone and then if i was to multiply
that by the amount of universities in the uk versus the number of jobs that are available it is
very very very scarce so it's really important to know before you go to university that it is going
to be really really hard to get a job once you get out and not to get disappointed if you don't
so i really hope that these points help you out if you are going on to do accountancy at
university let me know in the comments below and i'll wish you well and make sure whilst
you're down there to like the video and subscribe to the channel and i'll see you
in the next video thanks for watching you
