USA Advice for someone starting over at 43...

[Ernst]

Hello,

Sorry if this gets long, but I want to give a bit of background...

I'm seriously considering going back to school for Accounting to secure a better financial future for myself. I graduated with a BS in International Business in 1995. Unfortunately, I never used that degree. I worked as an adventure tour guide all over the US and Canada right out of college. It was seasonal work and I mainly did that for 6 years. The pay was poor but it offered a lot of freedom, and I was having great experiences. I did some other odd jobs and then decided in 2003 to go back to school for photography.

I always felt I was destined for more, but didn't want to go back to school unless I knew it would lead me to a better place. I'm very passionate about photography and felt very strongly about this path. In 2006 I graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Commercial Advertising, from what is considered one of the best photography schools in the country. Unfortunately that came with a school loan debt of $160,000... and the pressure of needing to start paying it back a month after graduating led me to a poor decision work-wise. I took the first job offered to me, working for a commercial real estate information company as a Research Photographer. The job was not professional photography, but photography was a big part of the job, along with collecting data and geocoding. In any case, the 3 years I spent there were pretty much a waste. I was only paying the bare minimum on my loans and barely making rent. Starting my own photography business was impossible due to the risk of spending all my time on it and not getting enough clients. I was going nowhere... so I moved my belongings back across the country to my parents and started guiding adventure tours again. That was 2009. I had a few photography gigs in between, but I've mainly been doing the seasonal work in tourism. The pay is a lot better now, but it is not enough, and I don't know how much longer I can do it. I never know how much work I'll have, and if I get 6 months worth of work a year, I'm lucky. I need a change. I need to start saving for retirement (at this rate I will never be able to retire) and become more settled (living out of a suitcase gets very tiring). I'm single with no kids, so I'm very flexible as far as my next move, although money is a problem.

I'm very concerned about taking on more debt to go back to school... I'm considering studying Accounting in Germany where tuition is free (even for Americans) and the coursework is in English. I just don't know if that will become a problem getting work in the US, with a degree from Germany. Does anyone know? I'd need to work out the details with costs, as I'd still need to pay transportation to Germany and the cost of living there. I'll have to compare that with paying tuition in the US. I know I can stop making payments on my school loans while in school, but interest will keep accruing. I really don't want to take out more school loans, but I need to move forward somehow and earn a better living.

I took a couple of accounting courses for my International Business degree, but that was over 20 years ago. Would it be possible for me to go straight into a Master's? I already spent 7 years earning 2 Bachelor's. I can't see myself needing to go through another 4 years to attain a Bachelor's and then a Master's. I'd probably just need to take some prerequisites?

I'm considering accounting as it's a field that has a lot of expected growth, and the income starting out is very good. I'm not sure what direction I should pursue in accounting. It seems the Big 4 would be the best way to go for the most income potential? I don't mind hard work and long hours. I need to pay my school debt, and more importantly catch up on saving for retirement. Income is a huge priority for me.

Does anyone have advice for me on the best career path in accounting to get to a high level of income?

Thanks for any insight!

 

[kirby]

Sending you a private message

 

[Megatron]

It seems to me that you found something you love to do in photography. I would try to leverage that into a career - start with some weddings, freelance for magazines, etc. Having to spend time away in another country will only add to debt and not as marketable as US degrees. I've hired accountants from Germany, Russia, and UK and they are all well educated and imo, generally better than their American counterparts but the foreign degree seems to be a turnoff here in USA.

 

[Ernst]

Thanks for the replies. I've been thinking less about pursuing accounting these last couple of weeks, mainly because of the expense of taking out more school loans. Studying in Europe tuition free may not end up saving me much money either, as I'd still need to pay living expenses. I would prefer to move forward and make a living with my current experience and education, but up to this point that has not really worked out. I'm confident that without my school loan debt, I would be in a much different place right now, but unfortunately that's something I have to deal with. It's been a few years, but I did shoot about 12 weddings, 3 as the main photographer. To really move forward with something like that you have to spend the majority of your work time on the business and I was doing it more on the side of my regular full time job at the time. Bills have to be paid... They also say you should be really passionate about wedding photography if you want to be successful in it and that wasn't the case for me. I'm considering looking into photography companies where I'm living that may need additional wedding photographers... but at the same time I need income coming in, and if I have to pick between minimum wage jobs and going back to my seasonal work, I'll do the seasonal work. Why would I work an entire year earning $15/hr (unless it was a sure way to something better) when I could earn that same amount in 6 months or less. Either scenario is not enough to change my circumstances and unfortunately I can't do both my seasonal tour jobs and weddings, as they mainly occur during the same time of year. Tour companies I work for generally want me to commit by February for summer work. So I've been choosing the work I know I'll have for certain, rather than hoping my own business will work out. I tried that in 2012 and ended up with very little income that year.

Freelancing for magazines is also easier said than done. It's a lot of knocking on doors and oftentimes it's more who you know than what you can do. Working for National Geographic for example would be awesome and of course that's a dream many photographers have. The last I heard, Nat Geo had let most of there staff photographers go, and only had 1 staff photographer. The only way to get published was to work on a story on your own dime and then present it in hopes that it would be accepted. I interned for a celebrity photographer in Los Angeles during my last session at school and he got me in with a magazine. I did 4 shoots for them. They paid me for the first once I agreed to do the second. I laid out money for equipment and travel and then never got paid for my time or expenses on the last 3 shoots. The magazine went under. No one was paid for working the last month, not even the office staff. That was not a good first magazine experience and discouraging. The celebrity photographer told me that he also wasn't always paid by the magazines he shot for. Unfortunately that internship didn't end with a job offer at that studio. The photographer would have liked for me to stay on, but he couldn't pay me. Perhaps I should have thought more about what internships would have been most likely to end in a job offer afterwards...

I have done photo exchange work while traveling at resorts and B&B's. One of those resorts ended up offering me paid work. Through my contact there I ended up getting 3 pretty well paid gigs. Unfortunately for me, that contact has moved on to another career.

I'm not completely dismissing the idea of going into accounting, but for the time being I'm thinking more about possibilities that don't require going back to school.

 

[Nora]

Have you thought about becoming a travel writer? You can pursue it while doing the seasonal work or during your time off.

 

[Ernst]

Thanks for the suggestion Nora. I have considered travel writing in the past, but I don't see a clear path with it to make enough money to be financially ok in the future. The projected growth for a career in travel writing is slow and the median income appears to be less than an accountant would make starting out. It also seems very few are really successful with it (making it their only income). I applied to a couple of travel writing positions in the past and got no response at all. I am fairly active posting advice on a travel forum, and posted travelogues with photos and travel tips on another travel site years ago, and although there were many compliments, no job offers ever came from it. I do know of someone who got a travel writing job because of her writing on that site, but I don't know what the pay was or if she is still doing it. I'm back to considering a Master's in Accounting, and have been to a couple of schools to get more information...