Accounting major vs Professional Accounting major (1 Viewer)

[franktheman]

Hey all, starting bCom this year with majors in professional accounting and finance.

Just asking, what's the difference between professional accounting and just regular accounting? I've heard that accounting teaches you the mechanics of accounting whilst professional accounting teaches how to be an accountant and sets you up to be an accountant. Doing professional accounting also requires you to do additional units to fulfill the prerequisites of later units (such as doing INFS1000 and CLAW2214 in the first year). Is there really that much of a difference between these two majors?

 

[seremify007]

I'm not familiar with the USYD syllabus but historically some universities had a professional accounting major to make it easier to hit all the prerequisites for post-grad qualifications (ie CA or CPA). If not for this, then (at least when I was in UNSW) you'd have to know what subjects you needed to do and plan your degree out accordingly or risk missing out on a prerequisite for CA/CPA.

Edit: Google led me to this page which basically confirms the above: https://sydney.edu.au/handbooks/business_school/commerce_laws/commerce_laws_accreditation.shtml