Is it necessary to study after CA?

Hello friends,

I hope you all must be fully prepared and geared up for the ICAI Campus Placement Program. All of you would be eager to appear for the interviews and bag your dream jobs.

One peculiar thing I have been observing amongst all CAs is to pursue an extra, additional professional course alongwith CA. Many people are of the opinion that having more than one professional degree enables one to get a good job. Lets discuss whether is this a myth or a reality.

Is it necessary to study after CA?

The common courses that people normally study alongwith CA are CS, MBA, CFA, ICWA etc. These degrees sound fascinating and are equivalent to CA. They help to shape your career and make you earn good money. Having an additional degree apart from CA may increase your social status, it may increase your prestige amongst your friends and they may also increase the size of your visiting cards, but the question is ARE THEY REALLY USEFUL?

As per the human behavioral science, a normal person tries to pursue various academic/educational degrees for his self satisfaction. Its a proven thing, that more the number of degrees acting as a suffix to a person's name, the more proud that person feels. The number of degrees held by a person are directly proportional to the amount of ego that the person has.

Bachelor's Degree

Bachelor degree is the basic requirement as well as the gateway towards future career. Having one bachelor degree alongwith CA is must and everyone should pursue it. I personally believe that this is a requirement and cannot be done away with.

Masters or LLB

After completing B.Com people normally opt for M.Com, LLB or MBA. Studying M.Com while studying for CA is a waste of time. Gaining an additional degree of M.Com is never going to make a difference in your professional life. Though this degree sounds fascinating as it is a Masters degree, its just a time wasting decision that people take. Once you complete CA no one is going to look at such academic achievements.

Pursuing Law or LLB is somewhat advisable. Law helps you to gain a wide knowledge and expand your horizons. Law and CA are inter related and so this degree will be helpful to you in future at anytime. Law is going to be helpful whether you are in practice or in industry. A CA needs to look after compliances to various acts for his clients and the basic knowledge of law becomes useful at this juncture. This knowledge will also be useful to the CAs who are going to settle down in the industrial sector since there also you have to comply with various laws and regulation.

The 3 idiots: MBA, CS, ICWA

Now lets talk about 3 hot favourite degrees amongst all the CA aspirants.

1) MBA

2) CS

3) ICWA

There has been a cold war and a never ending debate going on for which one is better, CA or MBA. I dont find the reason for this debate. I dont know why there arises a comparison between these two degrees in-spite of fully different work areas and functions. There's a common belief that an additional degree of MBA, CS or ICWA will open the gates for a better job opportunity. They believe that these degrees provide an edge over the other candidates in the interviews and help them to get a good job with a higher pay. 

But people fail to understand that these degrees are not useful in any manner while procuring your future jobs. None of the interviewer gets impressed when you have these degrees alongwith the CA degree. Unless and until you study MBA from those Top 10 B-Schools its not going to help you out.

In my career I have neither seen a CA with CS, ICWA or MBA getting a preference over the other candidates in the interviews nor they getting a higher pay than others. Just think how these qualifications help you out when you actually are doing the job of a Financial advisor, MIS reporting, auditing etc.

International CFA

Recently students are crazy after International CFA. Indeed its a good course to pursue and it helps you to get a good job but this course is a strict NO for those who do not want to go in the Finance Sector after completing their CA. This qualification wont be useful to all those who are ultimately going to settle down in India.

CPA

Same is the case with CPA. Just like MBA, CA and ICWA, CPA has been a hot-favourite of all those who have a good economic background. Students study hard and invest their money to go to USA and complete CPA. But before pursuing CPA, just give a thought how much this degree is going to be useful to you in future. There was a time in when people with a combination of CA + CPA used to get a good job in India but things have changed now. Nowadays it makes no difference if you are a qualified CPA or not. I have seen 5-10 people who have passed CPA and CA both and have been rejected by some of the best corporates. CPA is not going to be useful if you are going to settle in India.

Some other courses offered by ICAI

Students also get carried away by the courses offered by ICAI. After completing CA, its been a routine for most of the students to apply for ISA/DISA. My request is to please be aware where these courses are going to be useful to you. These courses are for systems auditing. They wont be of any use if your aim is to start a practice/work in the areas of income tax or any other law. 

Pursuing ISA, CISA, Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Internal Auditors course offered by US Institutes etc is no harm unless and until you want to build up a career in those fields.

Remember at all workplaces it doesn't matter whether you are a CA, MBA, CPA, CFA etc. The only thing matters is how well your performance is. There have been instances where people who just have completed their Bachelor's have progressed tremendously in their workplaces while those having the professional degrees have consistently underperformed.

I have seen people who were just CAs and within a short span of time they have climbed the ladder, while some people who have more than 2-3 degrees have been changing jobs without any promotions.

So friends its upon you whether to study further or not. I dont stop you from studying further but please do think twice before selecting any course. Think rationally about how that course is going to help you in future and then study further so that it can be beneficial to you.

I hope this will be help you in choosing the right career path ahead.

For your feedback do comment over here or write me on snehal.sukhadia@gmail.com

Bbye...