After a tough day with work and feeling like I'm underpaid and under-appreciated at work, I was so grateful to go to class tonight.

I had a conversation with the department manager about my professional goals. To give you some background, this is a company founded by marketers. Therefore, they don't really value accounting - hence, why I'm the lowest paid person on the team.

But I told him "I wish I could be a more essential part of the team because accountants are the ones that help management when we're evaluating a deal, to help say "This is the most we should be spending on the deal" because they are the most informed about costs and contribution margins."

And his response was "Really? You think that's accounting? That's what I do and I think that is more analytics. I'd really love to hear more about what you are learning because I think you'll find its more complicated" (He has an engineering and IT background)

So I walk into class & we have two guest speakers today. I don't remember their names, just what they do.

They are hired by attorneys to help in valuations, sometimes it turns into forensics and they have to serve as an expert witness.

As I'm listening to all this, I'm thoroughly engaged. Not like the night before where I was so bored in my cost accounting class (because I already took the continuation course which was 10x harder than this pre-req) that I spent most of it playing Chess on my iPhone.

This class, I wanted to learn more - couldn't get enough. The idea of investigating, making sense out of chaos.... yeah, THAT'S what caught my interest.

I have a huge interest in law. My brother is a prosecutor... and I had no idea a job existed that could allow CPAs (or ABVs) to work with different areas of the law.

THAT was actually my first profession choice. I wanted my major to be philosophy because I wanted to be an attorney. My counselor advised me to do Business Mgmt because I had 2 kids and doing law school with kids might not happen.

Then I found I liked accounting & handling money. I had no idea there was a way to deal with both aspects.

From what I gather, you need to gain technical experience in accounting first so if I wanted to do fraud examination - trying to get employed with the FBI or another government agency would be the tract I'd take.

If I wanted to help attorneys figure out the division of assets in a divorce or selling a business, he recommended working for a firm that deals with tax, audit, and valuations.

The growth potential is 10x anything my current job would give me. I went up to a classmate today and asked her what the starting salary for an entry level accountant was & she said around $40K (with a bachelors degree).

I'm about to get my master's and take the CPA exam. I've held off joining the "work outside the home" force because of DH's Naval career and the kids. I figured with childcare I'd need to make around $57K to break even.

But if I have to take an initial pay cut to GET to the $57K in 3-5 years, its worth it. Worth it to feel valued & challenged.

So I think that's my gameplan. Once I know where DH's next duty station is, looking around for a good firm. I'll plan to start taking the CPA exam in January and be done with it next year.

Apparently it will take awhile to enter the field of forensic accounting, but if I have that as a long-range goal to be doing that by the time I'm 35-40... well, at least its a better goal than where I'm currently at wondering if I'll ever really be paid what I'm worth to the company.