u/Fortunate-Fete

I'm an older student (29F) with no kids, no family to care for (and no intention to do so any time soon), and I've started to realize that I might prefer freedom to travel and a modest salary rather than climbing the corporate ladder. I've done corporate while in HR, and the politics were killer. I can't imagine how it'd be in accounting.

I've liked Cost Accounting and I really, realy enjoyed my Tax class, so I'm considering 3 different options: get a chill cost job in CFG manufacturing or similar and never worry about being unemployed, go into public for a couple years doing tax and then double down and go to law school to eventually hang out my own shingle, or, after a couple years at whatever sized firm, hang out a shingle for my own modest CPA firm and travel while virtually assisting my clients. My question is mainly about your thoughts on a CPA firm since the other two options will probably make it hard to accomplish the lifestyle I am looking for.

The main goal is not having to deal with the corporate bullshit for the rest of my life. Not that I can't fake it, but it is really exhausting pretending to give a shit.

Is it possible to have a chill lifestyle, travel and work from beautiful places, and make a simple living by establishing a CPA firm and running it yourself (+ maybe one bookkeeper)?

I'm in D101, which I know will already have some people cringing at the thought of that class, but I actually enjoy the material. It has me thinking that I might pursue a CMA after graduation.

• What pisses me off is all the typos in the material and quizzes.
• The tables are set up differently for the PA than the in-material videos, so there's basically no point in trying to memorize.
• The supplementary videos they provide that are made by actual WGU staff are literally just bored voices reading directly from slides, word-for-word- they can't even be bothered to show you the math step-by-step.
• We get max 2 examples in the material each lesson and nothing else to practice with. No worksheets, nada.
• The PA doesn't give explanations for wrong answers like quizzes do, which sucks because they present info differently on the PA than the quizzes.
• In some lessons where we'd really benefit from videos, there are none!

And so on and so on.

It amazes me that they've basically paid the accounting guy to use his videos and then slapped some sample questions together for quizzes and have some crappy, low-effort videos.

WHY AM I PAYING FOR THIS!? I'm not a dunce, either, I could pass the exam today but I'm trying to review the areas that I want to know more about so I can go in confidently and it's just reminding me that the material is so fucking low effort, it's almost a crime. They could do so much better. I'm fully offended by the mistakes and typos and crappy videos, it's almost disrespectful.

Yes, I'm learning. Yes, I'd still recommend this school to others who want an online format or who want to accelerate, but I honestly feel like I'm paying too much and not receiving enough in return.

Anyway, that's my crashout.