One of the things I love most about the MPA program is the amazing faculty, so of course I jumped at the chance to attend Dr. Jeri Seidman’s “Don’t Mess With Taxes” presentation. Professor Seidman went broadly over some of her research findings, such as companies paying taxes on fraudulent income to avoid fraud detection and reasons for increases in the book-tax gap (the gap between what a company reports for book income and taxable income).

In her presentation, Professor Seidman also covered some of the basics of accounting research. As a dual degree student in Plan II (which, if you’re unfamiliar with the program, is essentially an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree) and the MPA program, the idea of research and writing really appeals to me. This, of course, begs the question: should I be considering a Ph.D. in accounting?

The thought has occurred to me before. After all, being a professor sounds pretty great. Teaching and researching – I mean it’s definitely hard work, but hard work that I would enjoy. So what does it take to get there? I started skimming through rankings and curriculum descriptions, and of course wasn’t surprised to find out that McCombs has a top program, so I decided that would be a good starting place to look at what it takes to get your Ph.D.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that getting a Ph.D. would require so much math, but nonetheless, once I got past my initial aversion to the words “probability” and “statistics”, I realized that the course work actually seems pretty interesting, ranging from math and economics classes to research seminars, all culminating in a final dissertation. From what I can tell, the MPA program has provided me with a strong starting point if I decided to pursue a Ph.D. here or at any other top school.

All this is not to say that pursuing a Ph.D. is the only way to have a career centered on research. During my internship in the spring, I had some amazing opportunities to work on research memos for clients facing various tax issues, which I loved! For now, at least, I think that’s definitely the place for me. I’m going to start back there full-time next fall and hopefully continue on similar research projects, but somewhere down the road, maybe a Ph.D. is something to consider?