MA Accounting College Selection

Ppuddle16

Over the summer I interned in the Big 4. I received a grad. offer, (audit) along with a masters in accounting course sponsorship worth about €10k. Right now I am trying to narrow my choices down, but I have literally no idea what I should be looking for when I go to make my final choice.

When I grow up I plan on going down the Chartered Accounting Route, ideally training in a non FS service line.

Currently I am in 4th year of a BBS Business & Accounting degree, (with all CAP 1 exemptions) with first year average of 64.% & second year 65.6%. Last year I studied on exchange (not sure if thats of any use for my application) I plan on getting the first in final year.


In Boards eternal wisdom, what college would you recommend? If there are any graduates from any courses that could provide some advice it would be fantastic. At the moment Smurfit is in the lead, followed by UCC.

Sophia91

Ppuddle16 wrote: »

Over the summer I interned in the Big 4. I received a grad. offer, (audit) along with a masters in accounting course sponsorship worth about €10k. Right now I am trying to narrow my choices down, but I have literally no idea what I should be looking for when I go to make my final choice.

When I grow up I plan on going down the Chartered Accounting Route, ideally training in a non FS service line.

Currently I am in 4th year of a BBS Business & Accounting degree, (with all CAP 1 exemptions) with first year average of 64.% & second year 65.6%. Last year I studied on exchange (not sure if thats of any use for my application) I plan on getting the first in final year.


In Boards eternal wisdom, what college would you recommend? If there are any graduates from any courses that could provide some advice it would be fantastic. At the moment Smurfit is in the lead, followed by UCC.

Where are you from? The big 4 and future employers will not care where you do your masters as the FAE's will outweigh any masters qualification you have.

It's completely a personal preference decision - UCD has much bigger classes than say NUIG and has less continuos assessments and assignments as a result (based on someone who did the masters in NUIG 4 years ago who has a number of friends who did it in UCD and other colleges). Things could be different now but when I was in NUIG we did a number of presentations during the year along with a few continuos assessment exams and all of our final exams were in the summer. Therefore, in terms of preparing you for the workplace and FAE exams I found this to be a good masters (referring to only having full year exams as a help to preparing for FAEs). Some of the other colleges e.g. uCD have semesterised exams which may be easier at the time but dont prepare you for the extra workload involved in studying for FAE exams in one go I.e. Not semesterised. I also liked having a smaller class as it felt more personal and not intimidating if you wanted to ask questions, and the lecturers were very approachable.

In saying that I'm obviously more biased towards NUIG as I went there, therefore you need to think about what way you study better and which college is closer to home etc prior to making a decision. As you mentioned UCC I'm assuming NUIG is probably quite far from home.

UCD is obviously seen as a prestigious college, however when it comes to a masters in accounting it honestly does not look any better having a masters from UCD vs one of the others (DIT/NUIM/UCC etc). Therefore, unless you have easy access to the extra 5k-10k that it will cost to do the masters in UCD I would pick UCC. Rent is also very expensive in Dublin and I would consider other factors such as cost of living when making your final decision.

Killergreene

Letter Kenny do an online one with same exemptions offered

Do that and u can work away part time and you'll be sorted