More Kenyans opt to study Accounting in University

We have witnessed, in the recent past, a huge rise in the number of people who are opting to study accounting at university. This is interesting, because not so long ago, accounting tended to be one of the courses that would attract relatively modest numbers of students, as people avoided being termed as 'bean counters.' Accounting was, as it still is, a career that lacks glamour, a career that mostly involves spending all the time in the office.

The chances of your ever becoming famous as an accountant seems very slim indeed, so that the glamour-oriented student, accounting would seem like a relatively poor choice of a study area. This wouldn't have been a particularly big problem, were it not for the fact that a majority of student, at the points in life when people make these types of choices, would indeed be rather 'glamour-oriented.'

So, what changed, between then and now, so that we end up with people struggling to get places in university accounting courses, rather than having people shunning the courses as was previously the case?

Well, one factor behind the growing attractiveness of accounting courses is the realization that accountancy, its relatively lack of glamour notwithstanding, can turn out to be a rather interesting field of work. People are also coming to realize that some of the jobs that look glamorous aren't that exciting to the people who do them, and that some of the can be too stressful to be enjoyable.

Under the latter scheme of thinking, one will definitely appreciate the peace of mind that a competent accountant stands to enjoy, through the straightforward 9 to 5 routine, bereft of drama episodes. Many people are also coming to realize that accountants are in fact the behind-the-scenes characters who run the world. They are the 'illuminati' everyone keeps on looking for. You don't see them, but you see and feel the effects of the various decisions they make on behalf of their organizations.

Accounting also happens to be one of the study areas that have benefitted from the rising cost of education. As education becomes more and more expensive, people find themselves increasingly being forced to go into areas that give them employable skills; rather than going into areas 'where their hearts are drawn.' And when one starts to think in terms of employable skills, accounting is one of the areas that rank high.

After all, not every organization will need a teacher (only schools do), and not every organization will need a doctor (only hospitals do) - but virtually every organization needs an accountant. The end result is a situation where the demand for accountants keeps on growing every passing day, with the birth of every new organization, and with the expansion of every existing organization. So for the person who wants a degree that will almost definitely give them a job, and a degree with which there will be almost limitless opportunities as one advances in skills and experience, accounting turns out to be the thing to study.