CPA turned Librarian

Or at least that is my goal I’m working towards and this is my journey through it…follow it with you wish J

I knew I wanted to be an accountant since Sophomore year in high school when we received these little packets which were to represent a company and we had to record on the hypothetically transactions and then create the financial statements. I LOVED it. I wore blinders through the rest of my high school years and college. I made the mistake of never even considering any other career.

I became the typical nerdy accountant even before finishing high school. Although I do not regret those decisions to this day and am proud on my accomplishments. My senior year I finished 7^th in Nationals (in San Antonio, Texas) for the Business Professionals of America.  However, I missed both Junior and Senior prom due to the competitions. Senior year I started my college career ahead of time, by taking community college for Accounting classes my high school didn’t offer.

Like I said, I do not regret these decisions. My only regret was NEVER looking at any other possible career path.

I have been an accountant/CPA for the past 12 ½ years ago for a great Int’l manufacturing company, however I have not enjoyed my job for about the past 5 1/2 years. Plus, the only reason I was happy for 7 years was because of a promotion to the Corporate office. After 5 years I was done!!

O.K.  Now to the exciting part, I decided if I was to change careers I was making sure I would TRULY enjoy it. So about 3 years ago, I began thinking and researching what I wanted to be when I grow up. At first I thought an editor, but the only place to get a good job was in Chicago and being a single mom I didn’t want to be that far from home in case something should happen or the long hours. Plus, it is hard to get into and I would end up reading a lot of books (yeah) that I was not really interested in (yuck!).

I thought about just doing magazine book reviews and keeping my full-time job, but sent numerous emails and received no responses and really was becoming to HATE my job – all aspects – so I continued to ponder my choices.

I don’t remember exactly when and how the light bulb turned on, but it did about 3 years ago….I wanted to be a librarian. I love reading, I love researching and I would love to assist others in recommendations and research…and I already knew I wanted to do something with books and reading.

Now I had to just figure out how to go about it….what was needed, how to afford it, and if it was even a possible.  So I again started researching. Found out I would need a Master’s degree – 2 more years of college full-time. Of course I couldn’t go full-time as I still needed to work and going away to school wasn’t an option, so researching again….I found several colleges that offered on-line classes for a Master’s in Information and Library Science, however not quite as many that allowed you to earn the entire degree on-line. However, more research led me to a website that listed all universities that offered complete Master’s degree for SOIS on-line. I also had to verify that they were great accredited college, not those cheesy on-line schools.

After more research, I decided on University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee for several reasons.

-         It was close enough if I choose to visit for any reason

-         Was a reputable university

-         Did not require any entry exams

-         And as sad as it is, no long entry essays

Now, I had to get accepted and see how to afford it financial. This all is pretty boring, but was completed in the End of Spring ’09. I was going to try and get started that summer as I was so excited!!! However, that didn’t work out since financial aid worked differently for summer  session.  So Fall ’10 here I come!!