How to Brag About Hating Your Future Career Like a PPA Student

A large portion of students at Texas A&M are likely to hate the careers in their field of study. Engineers never really want to just be engineers forever, and there are few people who think investment banking will be a good lifestyle for more than a few months.

But no one earning a difficult and prestigious degree who will go on to work for a well-known and successful company wants to admit they know they’re going to hate their life choices a few years into the “real world.” Over time, many students develop strategies to brag about their future awful careers.

No group of students understands this better than students in the Professional Program in Accounting (PPA) at Mays Business School.

PPA students are highly coveted by the world’s four largest accounting and professional services firms, known as the “Big Four”: PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte. PPA students are trained to enter public accounting, otherwise known, ubiquitously, as the worst damn career ever. Most PPA students know they’re going to hate the first few years working as public accountants at the Big Four and have mastered the art of expressing their disdain for their future careers while also managing to brag about their smarts and success.

The Mugdown, after interviewing many PPA students, has compiled the definitive guide to bragging about your future terrible career, so that you, too, can beg for help while also seeming like an excited and successful young professional!

Step 1: Get into a really safe, really prestigious program, thanking God for the opportunity while also highlighting the job security.

In casual conversation: “I’m just really excited to learn more about what I want to do with my life and to have the first few years of my career already ironed out.”

Step 2: Casually mention how you’re so busy during recruitment season because the world’s four largest accounting firms won’t leave you alone.

In casual conversation:

You: “Yeah, I haven’t really been able to study for my audit test tomorrow. I’ve been swamped lately.”

Friend: “What’s going on?”

You: “Oh, just recruitment stuff every day. KPMG had a crawfish boil yesterday, PwC took us to steak dinners on Tuesday, EY is taking a bunch of recruits and recruiters to an escape room tonight, and Deloitte is throwing an open-tab happy hour at World of Beer tomorrow!”

Step 3: Accept an internship. While explaining it to people, always make sure you mention two things: how many hours you’ll be working during busy season, and how big of a deal your company is.

When asked about your internship: “Oh, I’ll probably be working a lot. I’ll be doing audit, which I’ve heard can be a lot of time, like staying at work until 1 a.m.. But the clients and opportunities at EY are pretty incredible, so it will be fine.”

Step 4: Post social media photos on your internship from networking events; highlight the few moments you don’t spend working by showing off your “cool new intern friends.”

Step 5: Accept a job 18 months before your start date, post about how excited you are on social media, and deposit your signing bonus. Meanwhile, tell everyone who will listen how much you hate the work you did on your internship.

In casual conversation:

Friend: “Wait, didn’t you hate your internship?”

You: “Yeah, but that was audit, and everyone hated auditors. I like my tax classes a lot, so that should be fine. Working busy season was definitely a grind, and I don’t really want to do that forever, you know? But no one signs up for public accounting because it’s fun, right?”

Friend: “Okay, but what if what you want to do changes between now and when you start?”

You: “Dude, I just got hired at one of the best firms in the world, I think I’ll be fine.”

Step 6: Regularly belittle students who sign with “lesser firms.”

In casual conversation:

You: “He signed with Grant Thornton? Man, I thought he was smarter than that.”

Step 7: Tell everyone how you’re only going to stay in for two or three years after graduation while heavily implying that your starting job is so incredible that you’ll be set for success for the rest of your life.

When asked by family what you’re going to do with your life: “Yeah, I’m going to go put in my time in public accounting. I think I can survive a few busy seasons and make it out alive. It’ll suck a lot, but I’ll get paid and then I can jump off into like, middle market firms, or be an independent CPA, whatever. Just need to pay my dues, right?”

 

—Fish Daddy