Accounting Bachelor's Degree Requirements

If you're interested in an accounting Bachelor's degree, be prepared to devote four years to your degree. The nature of accounting courses is that one tends to build upon another, so it is difficult to compress your studies too much and graduate with your accounting degree ahead of schedule. To earn a Bachelor's degree, you will normally have to complete between 120 and 135 credit hours. Unlike many liberal arts majors, accounting degree candidates usually have a smaller choice of electives, since almost all are directly accounting related. This is not a detriment since you can choose from areas that interest you. If you want to get expertise in taxation, non-profits, governmental accounting, quantitative systems, financial analysis, or almost any other specialized area, you will have that opportunity. You should still have between 15 and 25 hours of pure electives of your choice, which may not be directly related to your major. So, should you have the urge to improve your creative writing, study biology, or become semi-fluent in a foreign language, you will still have that opportunity.