Accounting & Academia with Dr. Josh McGowan

Hello, and welcome to the Big 4 Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by Dr. Josh McGowan, Associate Director of the William H. Carr School of Accountancy, producer of some great online content about the accounting world, and as I've just learned, a very patient man. You've been through some IT issues and stuff, so thanks for sticking with me here, Josh. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Yeah, absolutely. The first very academic man I've had on this pod, so I'm curious to kind of maybe start off with that. What drew you to sort of the more academic side of things rather than a career in public accounting? Yeah, very academic is pushing it, I think. I don't know if anybody else would describe me like that or where I work, but I would say the biggest thing for me, I did a MAcc at Troy University, a Master's of Accountancy, and I got to be the graduate assistant of our program, and a couple of my ... I really enjoyed all the faculty here. I get to work with some of them now, but the director of the School of Accountancy at that point in time was an individual named Dr. Steve Price, who has just been a great mentor to me and just is an incredible person, incredible professor. He's on NASBA task force. He's very involved. Right now, he's a scholar in residence with Carrigs and Ingram, which is a large CPA firm, but he's a busy person, and every, I don't know, once a month or every couple of months, he'd be like, hey, I got something. I'm going to be out of town this week for a conference or something. We go teach my principal's class, and so that's kind of where I kind of got the bug to do it. I really enjoyed it. It was fun. I also got to see how much he enjoyed it. It was one of those jobs where he came ... I worked in his office, so I got to be around him all the time, and he was just always happy, always happy to be at work and in a good mood about it. He said he had no regrets about going and getting a doctorate and becoming a professor, so it was kind of always in the back of my mind, and then it just ... He did push me, go get some practical experience because you want to be able to bring that in the classroom, so it kind of just worked out where after a couple of years, I'd always been thinking about it, and I reached out to him, and there was an opportunity here at my alma mater at Troy, so it was kind of a perfect time to do it, and so now I think I'm going into my sixth year here, and I've really enjoyed every minute. That's awesome. Yeah, I really resonate with the push to try and go get some practical experience. It was really night and day for me. Every one of my best professors either had had experience in the last five-ish years, or were actively working somewhere as a CPA, and were just kind of teaching on the side, which I think that brings a bit of a different element to teaching, but is actually something that ... I have a friend who does that. He teaches one course, and it's something that's always in the back of my mind. I think it'd be incredibly rewarding, and it'd be a great feeling to be able to kind of have that direct impact with people, and just be able to kind of shape their careers. Absolutely. I remember the first time I came out of the classroom after teaching my first class, and it is honestly still true six years later, five years later. You come out with more energy than you go into. When you come out of the classroom, you're jacked up, you're excited, because you might not have the whole class that was tuned in and super interested, but you got a good subset who are asking good questions, very interested. Just to follow up on your point, 100%, students, that's what they want to hear. They want to hear real stories from when you were in practice, or when you were in industry. That's really a huge, to me, an opportunity for people who are currently in practice, whether it's public, whether it's private, whether it's governmental. Reach out to a local college, a local university, accounting school, whatever it may be, and see if you can come speak to some students, because I promise you, they have a blast. They ask some really good questions, and I always hear from people who come into my class and speak. It's very rewarding for them as well, because they feel like they're giving back. A lot of times, they're dealing with, maybe not HR issues, but they're trying to hire young people, and it helps them kind of see their mindset, see what's important to them firsthand, instead of just reading it in some report, or something of that nature. If anybody listens to our podcast, or your podcast, I'm a guess, is interested, I always have openings. I'm always looking for people to come in our class, and be a guest speaker, and things of that nature. That's awesome, yeah. I think even just giving it a try, even if you don't think it's necessarily your thing, you might kind of surprise yourself. At my school, we actually had a partner from one of the big four, who was teaching an audit class on the side, which was pretty hilarious. But then when you look back, you're like, that's actually also pretty genius, because I think he's kind of the one who handled a lot of the campus hiring. Exactly. And so people would be like, oh my God, that's my prof, and he was a really, I didn't get him unfortunately, but he was a really well-liked prof, to my understanding. And so I think that helped that firm's recruiting in a massive way, right? So there can be kind of some fringe benefits to it as well. Absolutely. And it's kind of, I mean, with recruiting students, most organizations, most firms offer about the same salary, same benefits. So it's all about building a relationship with them. And that's, getting into a classroom, getting in front of them, it's just a great, if you are looking to hire somebody, it's a great opportunity to get to know them all, and start building that. Probably going to have some pretty good luck when it comes time to recruit. Yeah. So when you tried out public accounting, were there certain things that kind of solidified to you that like, this isn't for me? Or were there certain things that like, you really enjoyed and kind of almost dragged you in? Like, I'm always curious to talk to people about, in retrospect, what they think about their experience in PA now that they're kind of out of it. Yeah, I kind of have maybe, not to be long winded, but the two part, I've started in college working with a public firm as a part time person. And I got to do all the bookkeeping, the sales tax for their clients. And that was, that was interesting. I really, I enjoyed it. I think it gave me just a really good background. One working with clients face to face already as kind of a young person, a college student. And then also just understanding, like the actual accounting. Like I actually, you know, I got understood their financials and things of that nature. So I really enjoyed that, but that was kind of a part time thing. But when I moved into, you know, full time, I was on the audit side and I really enjoyed the work. That's, I tell you, that's true. I love going through, I love being able to go in and talk to CFOs and controllers and asking questions about our company. I thought that was, I mean, it's incredible that you can be 24, 25 years old, whatever the case may be. And you're walking into a very successful business and getting to ask, you know, executives about their company. I think it's probably the only industry that gets to do that. So that, I love that part of it. And I don't have any horror stories per se. I mean, the workload I thought was very reasonable, to be honest, which I know is not everybody's experience and I'm right there with everybody fighting for that. I had a good experience. The only reason, in all honesty, the reason I left is the individual who hired me. She was just, I loved working for her. She was a great boss, very passionate, very dedicated and expected a lot out of you. But I like that, you know, I like being pushed. She ended up taking another, she got a great opportunity and left the firm. And so after that, it was kind of like, just to me, everything, I was like, well, you know, I really came here because I loved working for this person. So I started looking for something and I'd always wanted to do something in private industry as well. So it was kind of a good time to do that, I thought. Yeah. And I think getting the full, you know, as full as possible scope of experience is like incredibly valuable. Like, you know, my big fear leaving the big four was like, oh, my God, what if this is a mistake? And I realize now that like, if I went back, like, I'd be so much better now than I like would have been had I just stayed because I'm like, I understand the other perspective. Like, I was really on like the business development route. Like, I understand, like the internal buying decision at like a private company and stuff like that. Like, I think there is a lot of value to trying things out. And like, if you are curious about something like, you know, and it's early in your career, especially try not to burn the bridges, like try to keep a good relationship on your way out. But like, do go try that thing. Right. Like, I think there's a ton of value in that. And I think what's great is there's not that much risk. Yeah. At least at this point. And I'm not saying it won't be. It will always be like this. But right now, if you go try something you don't like, odds are you can go back and find it. I mean, you'll be able to find another good job. Most likely, if you want to go back to doing something you were doing previously, you're probably going to be able to find it, whether it's with the same company you're with or firm or whatever. Yeah. You know, it's kind of a that's what's cool about you. You always have something to fall back on. So you can take those risks. And I know what you're doing with the podcast and everything, that's a risk. Right. And I think it's going to work out incredibly. It already is. I know. But, you know, five years down the road, if you're ready to do something else or you're tired of doing this, you can always, you know, you're going to have plenty of opportunities there based on your past experience, which is another awesome thing for CPAs and accountants. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of kind of like opportunity in the market and all that. Are students today like pretty conscious of that? Like, is the tone of students like, hey, we're a really hot commodity because they are in reality. But I remember when I was a student, it was like, oh, my God, like I, you know, I felt like Dobie out of Harry Potter, like, you know, being given a job offer. And I was like, oh, this is the thing. This is all we've ever wanted. And yes, I'm really curious to know, like, has that tone changed at all? I would say where at my university, it's a lot of first generation college students. So I think it has in a sense. But I mean, just if you can, like you're saying, remember back to when you got that first offer, it's an incredible feeling. So there's still that joy because, you know, we tell them where I'm sitting in principals, I'm like, hey, all you got to do is come in here and do what we ask. Make some good grades, get involved, and we're going to you're going to get some full time offers, some internship offers. But then when they get that first internship offer or that first job offer, it's still a pretty cool thing to watch because they're like, wow, you weren't lying to me. You know, it's like it actually worked. I'm actually going to have a great salary, you know, a great start to my career. But we do I mean, I do speak with them that, you know. The supply is not where the demand is, and that's a good thing for you as a student. And I think they realize that pretty quickly by the time they get into intermediate one and two, because they're getting not bombarded because it's a good thing, but they're getting lots of emails, lots of opportunities to meet different firms and things of that nature. So I think it's pretty obvious to them. But it's still that excitement still there. And I think they're still very grateful for even getting if it's just one internship offer, one job offer. They're very grateful for that because it's just I mean, that's why a lot of our students come to college is to get a great start to their career. And so they're very excited when it happens. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I imagine by the time you're in inter one and two, you're like, all right, this better pay off because those were the two classes that I really did not enjoy. So yeah. Yeah. I love hearing about kind of like the first generation perspective. There was a post on Reddit that went really viral a while ago, too, around that where people were like, you know, is is like accounting like the official path of like, you know, people forging like a better future for maybe lower income families and stuff like that. And it's never something that I thought of, but it is kind of interesting where it's like, OK, like, you know, there's less barriers than like a med school, you know, dentistry, some things like that. It is like a little bit more accessible, I think, to a lot of people. And it's like a pretty much a guarantee of like if you're going to put in the work, like, you know, it's pretty straightforward to be able to make, you know, one hundred and fifty thousand a year, which is a fantastic income, like, you know, several several years into your career. Right. So, yeah, I I really like the perspective that you kind of give of like these first generation students are like really just so grateful to be there because I think you see a lot of the rhetoric online of like people being like, oh, this is garbage, you know, considering just dropping everything and starting over with a new career. And it's it is important to kind of like stay grounded and realize like, yeah, for a lot of people, this is like winning the lottery. Right. Absolutely. I mean, you go from. And you just go from being in college, you're working part time going, you're trying to pay for school or you got scholarships, but you're still paying for living expenses and making thirteen, fourteen dollars an hour typically here where we're at in our location or something like that. And then you go to make seventy thousand. Just that is an incredible moment in their lives because it's very possible that's more than anybody in their family has ever made. And they're doing it at a very young age. And now, you know, you see them five, ten years down the road and just the success they have, it's just unbelievable. And it's not every single person. We have people that get out of accounting and don't do accounting, even though they got an accounting degree. One of our one of my colleagues, her husband was a great student at Troy, got a got a CPA. He's he he runs a great business as a chess coach. OK, so it's not always. But it's so incredible seeing the people that come back as CFOs and partners in CPA firms and just, of course, making a incredible career where they started, you know, just like, hey, I'm the first person ever even go to college in my family. So I think what was the sense on Reddit when that when that was kind of being talked about? There were a lot of people kind of coming forward with like, yeah, sort of stories of like, you know, immense gratitude for the careers of like, yeah, like, you know, I was a bag boy or girl at Walmart and I got this job and like a bunch of people around me were complaining and I was like, are you are you kidding me? Yeah, so it's it's a it's just a useful perspective to kind of keep in mind sometimes because, yeah, I myself when I was there, right, like I had really high paying jobs in university, like I worked in like nightlife and stuff. And so like I got into the firm and I was like, what the hell? Like, what do you mean I'm working so hard for so little? Because normally I'd be like, you know, pour a bunch of rum and Cokes and make half of what I'd make in a week at a firm. But in Canada, I think some of the structure is a little bit different as well. So, yeah, I think I've seen something where and this could be wrong, so don't don't quote me on it, but I believe somewhere it's I've read some article that said most or a majority of CPA firm partners are actually from state schools, which is pretty interesting because I think that goes into it a little bit more that maybe their background leads them leads into, hey, yeah, I'm working hard, but my parents worked hard and didn't make anywhere near this. So I'm willing to work as hard as it, you know, if I need to work hard, I'm that's part of the job. But to your point, you know, I grew up doing my granddad owned a water well business and sprinkler system. So I grew up doing that every summer and I was like, mom, I just want to do this. You know, he makes good money. And, you know, and I remember telling me, she's like, you can do that. But just think about when you're 50, 60, you know, what do you want your body to look like? So to be able to come in and, you know, have a career where you use your mind. To make it, it's very good for a very long time. Right. I mean, my granddad wasn't able to drill wells and do things like that after a certain age. But as long as your mind's sharp, you can have it as you can work. And if you're enjoying it for really as long as you want to, which is pretty special. Yeah. So speaking of using your mind, a big topic for our knowledge workers is like AI. I'm curious, like, are students really talking about that? Like, are they concerned about it? Are there sort of like initiatives to be able to get ahead of it in terms of like, here's how to kind of use it in your favor? Or is this sort of not something that's necessarily top of mind at that point? I would say we are trying to. Integrate it where we can. It's just with any new technology, it's tough on people in academia because we don't we don't always want to go all in, because in three years there might be a different technology. And I'm not saying I'm not an AI denier by any means. AI is definitely going to be here in three, five, ten years, of course. It's been here for 20 years already. We've been using AI and algorithms for all kinds of things. But we just a lot of times we don't know exactly what it's going to look like. We don't know exactly what it's going to look like. And it's like, you know, we'll have firms. Hey, you need to use this software in your audit class or in your tax class, because this is what everybody uses. And we're like, all right, we'll implement it. We'll make, you know, we'll make all the changes. And then two years later, something else comes out that. So to us, it's like, you know, how explaining how to use at least AI to be productive and things of that nature. But it all goes back to just a critical thinking. At the end of the day, you know, you can learn a skill at any point. You can get on YouTube and learn a skill. So it's like, how do we how do we instill that critical thinking and the communication skills? And how do we combine that with an accounting knowledge to where this person can be confident leaving school? That's one thing I try to focus on is making sure they have that confidence, because I did not have that at a young age. It's like, I don't know anything. But it's like, well, you've got an accounting degree. Maybe you pass a CPA exam, you're a CPA or CMA, and your knowledge is very valuable. So I like to tell them, hey, this is what a firm is going to bill you out at. That's what you're worth to people. And that kind of just lets you know, I mean, that confidence is a big thing. And that goes with AI and just, you know, you can tackle anything. But to I guess to wrap up, we are putting it in the curriculum. It's a big deal in our business school. And it's more about like, how can we use it to be effective and efficient? I don't believe it's going to take over our industry. And if it does, it's going to be the stuff that we need it to help us with, with the automation, things of that nature. The boring stuff that keeps people out of accounting. When I go into a principal's class, I'm telling them, hey, you can help businesses succeed. You can talk with them. You can help people be more successful. That's what people get excited. It's not about doing journal entries. So if they can help us do journal entries and things and compliance things, I'm all for it. Yeah. All the little things where it's like, listen, if we're all getting out of here at 630, but we'd like to be out of here at 430 and we can automate two hours of stuff, like have at it. That's great. Right. Yeah, I think there, you know, in general, I think people are pretty realistic about this stuff. But there is the occasional person who's like, oh, we're all doomed. And yeah, I kind of share your sentiment where I'm like, it'll automate a lot of the stuff we don't want to do and then it'll leave the real things to be done. Right. Which is nice. There is a bit of concern out there for like, OK, but what about new staff? But, you know, I had some discussions with folks where they're saying really like the play would would really be like retain 10 percent of it and just have it done manually just for the learning and then just automate the rest or like even with outsourcing. Yeah, that's kind of a question. A lot of not not really at Troy, but I hear in the professor community, because what we're told now, pretty much especially from larger firms, is we do not teach students how to prep a tax return. Yeah, we need our students coming in, being able to review tax returns. And then, of course, professors and people are like, well, how could they ever review something they've never done? But it really goes back to that critical thinking and things about I don't think that's impossible. I think you could review something you don't have, like you said, 10 percent, hold it back, let them of course, you want to let them work through some stuff. But I don't think they need maybe two years of experience for moving your view and especially write some simple, whether it be returns or, you know, simple audit procedures, something of that nature. Yeah. So back to the students as well, like outside of, you know, the university and the programming and the professors themselves, what are you seeing most people like being influenced by? Because, you know, there's a ton of accounting podcasts out there, but like, I don't know that students are necessarily like listening to that. There's a ton of kind of influencers. And I'm just curious from someone who's in front of these people, like, what are the consuming and like what's really having like an impact on their either perception of the industry or just, you know, a glimpse into the world of accounting? I would say. How it's two things, with the second probably being more important to students, one, how it's portrayed in just pop culture in general and which is probably not a good thing for us typically. Yeah. Like the office, all students still watch the office pretty much. So how the accounting group was in the office. But I would say more importantly, and by far number one, is their peers. Those that graduated a few years ahead of them, that come back on campus and speak to them, or they were friends in college, but they graduated two or three years ahead. And that's what I think has hurt the pipeline more than anything, is that they had peers saying, yeah, like what you said, you know, I'm working always hours and I don't feel like the money is worth it. And previously, I think it was, yeah, I'm working hard, but the money is worth it. And when wages stagnated for 10 years, when starting salaries just stayed the same for year after year, it got to a point where people were coming back and going, well, you know, you could do accounting, but, you know, maybe check out this other, this finance that you can make the same amount of money or, you know, this data analytics degree. And so I think that hurt us more than anything, that just people were coming back and talking to their friends, which I'm not, I'm not saying don't do that. Absolutely. That's something we have to change from an industry perspective, not from, we want people telling you the truth. I'm not going to hide the truth from any student out there. If I don't want somebody coming back and say, oh, you told me it was all great. It's all perfect. Yeah. You know, that's, that would be very unethical of myself and anybody else doing that. And that's kind of goes to the AICPA thing that's been going around in the new AICPA president. I know that's been huge on Reddit and I'm not on Reddit much, but I saw it, you know, and I think she was very unfairly quoted and framed in that. Because if you listen to the whole thing, she's not exactly saying what people are making her out to be. We need to talk about, so you go to, maybe you give a little background on that, what you've seen on it. Yeah. So I didn't listen to the whole thing. So I'm part of the problem very broadly. But yeah, basically of saying like, you know, a big part of this pipeline problem is people portraying the industry too negatively. So basically stop talking about your problems and just tell everybody how great this is essentially is how it got portrayed. Right. Which I think is it's a huge problem. I actually like responded to someone's tweet about him being like, yeah, like just, you know, deceitfully get them through the door and solve none of the problems. That's that's not the way to go. Right. Like, but I'm curious for what the like your interpretation is, because, again, I didn't listen to the whole thing. Like, I'm I'm just getting, you know, swept up in what everyone's saying about it. So, yeah, I mean, a word choice in the headlines have not been kind and maybe rightly so, maybe not. But to be honest, that's the whole reason I got on Twitter. I actually got on Twitter to follow somebody about lumber and pricing when I was trying to build a house. But why I stayed on it and found the accounting Twitter and tax Twitter is because everything is negative. Yeah. And like everything you hear online on social media about accounting was negative. And that's not the case when you actually talk to people. When you talk to people, it's like, no, like you would be very maybe I'm wrong. But anybody I've talked to who's had an accounting career, 10, 15, 20 years, if you ask them whether they'd go back and change it, they say no. It's been an incredible career to me. So I think just getting that message along with it's not hiding the negatives. It's not saying there isn't things that need to be changed or anything of that nature, because I'm I'm all for. students. That's who I try to represent is their well-being, their career path, all of those things. But at the same time we don't just want to flood the airwaves with hey all of us sucks about our industry, our career without telling the story. Hey this made me a millionaire and I'd, you know, I'd nobody in my family ever went to college. It supported my family. It's done this. At this point I, you know, I found a position where it's completely flexible. I'm working from home. I'm doing this. So I guess just trying to balance that a little bit is my perspective and by no means am I saying there's not negatives or there's things that need to change. Yeah, yeah it's nice. I find like when some like accounts sort of like break the fourth wall a little bit. Like, you know, there's a lot of like popular meme accounts where like yeah that is what people congregate over and you kind of laugh about the problems because that's how people kind of bond and cope with it, right? But I have seen some accounts like every once in a while. One person I like really like, I don't know how active she is anymore, but it's Kristen who ran like three of these accounts. She had like Big Four Confessions, like Accounting Betch, like some other. I forget all of them but and I've actually had some conversations with her and like she's like yeah like you know she talks about the industry very candidly as well and actually mixes in a lot of like good things in there. She's someone I think she's like starting a family or something. I like I really I want to have her on at some point because in the early days of Big Four Transparency she was like a very positive one and she like saw how this was helpful to people and she like really backed me. So yeah I would love to kind of like have her on at one point but like I've seen her sort of like break the fourth wall a little bit and like talk about like okay but actually like here's what how things are going right. And I think that that's really important every once in a while and I don't really fault anyone for like just the the memes even though they're often negative. Like I've done that as well right and it's like because that's what gets a laugh. And clicks and right I mean just like our news right negativity is going to sell. But you just got to be careful with I think how it damages the perceptions to a younger generation. Because we're only hearing the negative that makes it tough on them to make a decision. Because yeah it might be true in other industries right because everybody complains about oh yeah yeah yeah. But I don't hear it near as much and it might just because I'm in accounting of course. But yeah it seems like I don't hear it as much about marketing or yeah I don't know. It might just be a bias because I'm consuming everything accounting. Yeah I mean I'd be inclined to agree with you. And I do think that that is like a whole generation of like where all of this wage stagnation was. Where it's like hey like my firm hasn't increased starting salaries in 14 years. Meanwhile the cost of living has gone up by 30 percent. Like that's you know that's gonna take a toll on you. So like I noticed like part of my cohort we got like a pretty sizable adjustment. And part of that came down to the firm where I kind of like put a bunch of data in front of them. And I was like hey we're like we're behind here. Do something about it please. And that kind of helped a little bit but at the same time it was clearly like there was this like industry pressure and it was just ready to crack. And it was like okay like fine you know we have to we have to make this change. But so I got kind of the tail end on that. And that like really sort of like dampened my experience where I was just like awestruck by where things were at. But like for people even like a year or two ahead of me. Like they were deeper into it than I was before you know wages started to kind of tick upwards. So I could definitely see how people felt that way and like needed this outlet. So again that's where I'm like I really don't fault anyone for it. Yeah that's a really good point. Yeah it's the worst thing that's ever happened to our profession I think. Is the 15 years where wages stayed the same. I don't think we'd have any issues we have. We're facing pipeline and things of that nature without that. And you see me arguing all the time about 150 hours probably on Twitter. And I I come off as like I'm this pro 150 guy and it's probably because he teaches and he wants students in you know graduate program. But it's a hundred percent honest is that that's not I talk to my students that's not the issue whatsoever. No. And it's not like if you're like hey are you a supporter of this 150 rule? I'd probably say no. Yeah. To how it's written. I don't like that it's a random 30 class or 10 classes 30 hours. Yeah you can do that doesn't make any sense. I just I don't like when people conflate that with because the way the way it's been brought up this whole discussion around 150 is all because of a pipeline. So if you were to come to say to me hey we want to change the 150 rule because of this and this and this and these reasons it doesn't make sense how it's written. Absolutely I'm probably I'm on board most likely. But if you're saying it's because it's going to fix our pipeline issue while we ignore the real problems over here. That's where I try to at least speak up and be like that's not what the students are saying. That's might be what you're being told but if you speak to students that's not true. Yeah no I've been super outspoken about my opinion on that too which is exactly the same where I'm like I'm pro getting rid of this because I think it's bureaucracy you know I think it's just extra obstacles for absolutely no reason in its current iteration. If there was an extra year and it was like you know here's like a database management course here's this and it was actually really really practical. Maybe maybe not I don't I'm not totally sure but like I think it is just a really convenient thing where it's like you don't have to actually address any problem that you are a part of or a cause of. So we're just going to like point at this other thing and I think that that's like you know I think that that's just hugely kind of hypocritical of you know a lot of people anyways who kind of talk about this as being like the only issue that's going on and it's like no it's not and to be fair like a lot of the other issues have improved like the wage stagnation and stuff like things are really moving now which is good but like it's going to take years to like wash that out of the system because you still have a bunch of people in here who've been drastically underpaid for five years and who now have gotten a promotion but like they're not like oh all is forgotten and now I'm going to evangelize that accounting is the best industry in the world right like I think some of the other things have been addressed I think the work-life balance is the next biggest thing that needs to be addressed because you know in more and more conversations I'm having with people like it's like I don't want to be a partner making seven hundred thousand dollars a year and never seeing their kids right like and that's just like priorities have shifted for a lot of people and so I think that that's like the next issue that like needs to really be addressed but nobody wants to address it so we're just going to talk about 150 hour rule right so yeah and I'll if I could speak a minute about our yeah or a second about our Mac program I'm very biased on the 150 year old probably as well because of our Mac at Troy I went through it as a student most of our undergrads like 90 plus aren't going to go get a random 30 hours they're going to do our Mac it's not super expensive for a graduate program and it's a lot not saying it's the only thing we do but we focus on the CPA exam you know we got Becker intertwined with our program we're teaching some of the tougher concepts that come up on the CPA exam we're doing a lot of other stuff too so I know I'll get some people pushed back oh we don't just teach an exam that's not but we also realize our students are getting the Mac because they want to be a CPA they won't let you 30 hours take exam so it's our job to respond to the market as well and help them achieve that yeah and what I worry about a lot is if we got rid of the 150 hour now these same students and one argument is well they could still get 150 and no because if it's not required why would it doesn't make sense so they're going to go work full time and now we're relying on firms organizations to be kind enough to allow them to take the time to pass through a study for a CPA exam sit for it all that stuff and so everything I've heard from people is it's extremely hard to pass a CPA exam while you're working full time and the pass rates represent that so I worry from a student perspective that they would get okay I'm going I'm getting this great offer I'm going to work and then well they're going to work me for three or four years I'm going to put in a lot of work but I'm never going to pass a CPA exam yeah and now what um so from a kind of an individual standpoint if I could rewrite the 150 hour I'd say hey do 30 hours in accounting or you know an upper business load something data analytics that makes strategy like accounting systems database management like if there was an AI course or like some like automation course like that'd be so worthwhile but yeah I think for the 150 my kind of final thing on it is like people should look to Canada and like honestly get a lot of like data from people in Canada because we basically we basically did the opposite where I used to be able to do all these challenge exams right out of your bachelor's degree so you do a challenge exam and then like there were four modules and you could do these challenge exams to get through all of the modules and then you could just write your CPA exam so I was the last year kind of that you were allowed to do these challenge exams and now the norm is you do either a graduate diploma or a master's and so I didn't want to deal with any of that so I did the challenge exam so I had to write two CPA exams at the same time as my university finals and then two of the two more about three months later and then I wrote the CPA exam like four months after that and like I struggled a lot with like anxiety kind of like during that time after that time it was like it was not very good for me from like a mental health perspective and I think doing it as a student would have been much better now that's not my style like I hate kind of being told what to do so I was like let me just do it this way but I think that really took a toll on me and doing it the kind of longer academic way is not all bad right like there is absolutely some merit to it I have a ton of friends who did it that way and were super happy with their experience and because I rushed through the CPA exam and like that whole process I still had to wait a year to get my letters so I got it like I got it like a month before other people who just did the academic program basically so we moved our program and we call it hackflix now so we teach in person but it's also streamed live on teams and we're actually we'll be announcing some stuff soon but we're working with some firms where we're basically coming to an agreement that hey this student's going to work go ahead and start working for you to start gaining experience but you know you're only going to work on this many hours or you know the firm saying we want our people to become CPAs we like your program we know you guys are produce CPAs out of your program so we're going to reduce our hours let them study let them do the stuff for your program and it's kind of a win-win for everybody students starting to get experience the firm's getting employees that are you know going to become CPAs but they're already starting to get into the process of firm and things of that nature so we're excited about that nice yeah I I've looked into those a little bit they seem very interesting I like the idea of them so okay so we should probably wrap it up soon but I have a couple quick questions for you as well the first one what are you most excited for for the accounting industry overall that's a good question I think I am most excited for the opportunities for young not even young but new accountants I think there's never been a better time to either major in accounting or switch to an accounting career I think you can be extremely successful in the first five six years of your career I think previously it took what you had to put into work you had to put in the years of experience that people required to move up to certain levels and I think at this point you can you can do your own thing I don't think people are just tied to hey this person needs eight years of experience before they can do this job um because there's so many opportunities out there so I think right now is I mean I just you know there's people on Twitter people on LinkedIn that are under 30 that are running incredible firms incredible companies related to those people in the um content creation business that are doing great stuff and so just seeing seeing what personally I'm selfish seeing what our students do in the next five to ten years but then just as the industry as they take over the industry kind of um how it changes nice um and then if there's one thing that you could change in terms of like your students information diet like if there's one thing that you could kind of get them to consume get in front of them what would it be and what do you think like more students should be looking at we big for transparency podcast um I would say just to get them to to be honest anything um just to get them involved in anything because the earlier they start networking just some more opportunity they're gonna have and you know that's we do a great job of bringing recruiters to campus but there's a whole there's a whole ecosystem out there you know I've had a couple that follow me on Twitter and um they've reached out to some of the contacts I've had um and that's been awesome it's like yeah you can just reach out to people um and especially if you're a student there a lot of times people are more than happy to answer your questions and um so I think just building those networks and just to answer your question to anything um anything accounting related if I can get them involved in that that's a win awesome I love it well thank you so much Josh I really appreciate you joining me on the pod I really appreciate your patience once again for the kind of IT issues and whatnot and uh yeah I look forward to kind of chatting with you again absolutely thank you for having me this enjoyed the conversation and I appreciate you um extending the offer yeah