Accounting is integral to the smooth functioning of finance and industry, as well as the financial lives of most people. When choosing a dual degree for an accounting graduate program, there are many factors to balance in making the decision. In today’s world, whoever, not all choices are created equal.
Resource: Top 10 Online Accounting Degree Programs
Information Systems
Information systems have become fully entangled in all the interactions that govern human business relationships. As with everything else ubiquitous among the business lives of their clients and employers, so to must information systems become part and parcel with the work of accountants.
In the more focused scale, specific programs that are used to run databases are essential for accounting work and employment nowadays. From systems auditors, which work through the functionality of an accounting system, to your basic accountants, everyone in the field could be served well by more accountants specializing in information systems.
Global Business
Sometimes being knowledgeable about technology is the best route to go, as with information systems. However, for any business looking to scale its market, production, or stock price up must be fully integrated into global business. The intricacies of global accounting creates one of the most challenging and intriguing niches in the field, and as time progresses, global business will only become more important.
On the accounting side of things, from an employability standpoint, larger or burgeoning businesses are in dire need of better global accounting, finagling the maze of legislation hat governs international trade and accounting standards.
Taxation
On the topic of accounting standards is the tried and true field of tax accounting. On the small scale, the usefulness of specialized training in the taxation side of accounting is clear, as most individuals work with accountants for taxes more than anything else.
However, on the more lucrative business side of the equation, tax accounting has become global accounting, and working through the many beneficial or detrimental tax laws of the many nations of the planet has reinvigorated the tax accounting field in the past 20 years.
Finance
An old standard of working in the higher levels of business, a finance dual degree is especially useful if it is the investment facing side of a bank that is your dream. Any accounting done in investment or at a major financial institution will be helped greatly by this specialization.
This is especially true in the past 25 years, since the effective repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in the United States. An accounting department at a financial institution now has to balance the combined books of an investment bank and a commercial bank at the same time.
Data Science
Data Science is only offered in the top tier of accounting programs, and often it is not a standard dual degree option even there. However, data science is on the cutting edge of massive scale data analysis, and the field grows in leaps and bounds each year as it infiltrates more and more fields.
This is because the sheer amount of data that is produced everyday requires finesse more than brute force to understand. As business systems grow more integrated and complex, it is likely that data science will grow in accounting as well. One downside of this focus is that you may need further training afterwards.
Whichever of the myriad dual degree choices available best suits your needs and ambitions, whether it be one of these or a more niche focus, feel secure in the knowledge that even as the world moves into a new age, accounting is as necessary as ever.
