When I first started considering the US CPA in Korea, I wasn’t simply looking for another qualification to add to my résumé. I was thinking about what kind of career I wanted to build for the next several decades.
For several years, I had what many people in Korea would consider a pretty good career.
I was working for a large Korean company, had a stable salary, and could have simply continued following the traditional corporate career path.
But one question kept bothering me.
What would I actually have if I left the company one day?
That question eventually led me to the US CPA.
Working for a Large Company Wasn’t a Bad Life
I want to make one thing clear first.
I didn’t pursue the US CPA because I hated my job.
There are many advantages to working for a large company in Korea: stability, structured career development, decent compensation, and the opportunity to work with experienced people.
For many people, it is a perfectly good career.
My concern was more about the long term.
When you work inside a large organization for many years, a significant part of your professional value can become connected to that organization.
Your position.
Your team.
Your internal network.
Your knowledge of the company’s systems and processes.
Those things are valuable while you’re there.
But I started wondering:
How much of that value would still belong to me if I left?
That was the question I couldn’t ignore.
I Didn’t Want My Career to Depend Entirely on One Company
We often talk about living to 100.
But realistically, very few people will stay at the same company for their entire working life.
Companies restructure.
Industries change.
Technology replaces certain jobs.
And sometimes people simply want something different after twenty or thirty years.
I realized that I didn’t just want a good job.
I wanted professional knowledge that could stay with me regardless of where I worked.
Something I could continue developing in my 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond.
A skill that could potentially open different paths later in life.
That changed the way I thought about my career.
Instead of asking:
“Which company should I work for?”
I started asking:
“What expertise should I build?”
That was a much more important question.
I Considered Completely Different Professional Careers
Once I started thinking this way, I considered several possibilities.
And some were very different from accounting.
For a while, I even thought about careers such as becoming a lawyer or dentist.
The appeal was obvious.
These professions are based heavily on individual expertise and professional qualifications. Your career isn’t defined entirely by the company printed on your business card.
But there was a practical problem.
Starting those careers would require an enormous reset.
Years of additional education, significant tuition, entrance requirements, and a long period before I could realistically begin practicing.
I wasn’t starting from age eighteen.
I already had a career.
So I had to think about time, cost, and opportunity cost.
That’s when accounting started to look very different.
Why I Decided to Pursue the US CPA in Korea
Accounting offered something I was looking for:
a relatively efficient way to build professional expertise without completely restarting my life.
Of course, passing the US CPA exams isn’t easy.
It requires hundreds of hours of studying, and passing the exams alone doesn’t suddenly make someone an accounting expert.
But compared with going back to school for many years to enter an entirely new licensed profession, the path was much more realistic for someone already working full-time.
There was another reason.
Accounting is everywhere.
Companies need financial reporting.
They need audits.
They need internal controls.
They need to understand costs, transactions, taxes, investments, and financial performance.
And these concepts don’t disappear when you change companies.
That was exactly what I wanted.
Knowledge that could travel with me.
Why the US CPA Instead of Just Studying Accounting?
For me, pursuing the US CPA in Korea also provided a clear structure for turning that interest into a professional qualification.
I could have simply studied accounting without pursuing a professional qualification.
But I wanted something more structured.
The US CPA gave me a clear curriculum and a measurable goal.
Instead of vaguely saying, “I should learn more about accounting someday,” I had specific subjects to study and exams to pass.
It also had another advantage that mattered to me:
international portability.
I was already thinking about experiencing a world beyond Korea.
I didn’t know exactly where that would lead at the time, but I wanted a qualification connected to a global business environment rather than something useful only inside one company.
The US CPA fit that direction.
[PHOTO – Insert a personal study desk, CPA books, calculator, or old study notes here]
The US CPA Wasn’t the Final Goal
This is something I understand much better now.
A professional qualification by itself doesn’t create a career.
The US CPA was not the finish line.
It was a tool.
It gave me accounting knowledge and eventually helped me move into experiences I probably wouldn’t have had otherwise.
More importantly, it changed how I thought about my own career.
I stopped thinking only about companies and job titles.
I started thinking about skills, expertise, and experiences that would remain mine even when the company changed.
That distinction has stayed with me.
Would I Make the Same Decision Again?
Yes.
Not because becoming a US CPA automatically guarantees a high salary or a perfect career.
It doesn’t.
And I wouldn’t recommend pursuing the qualification simply because someone says, “CPAs make good money.”
For me, the decision made sense for a different reason.
I wanted to build something professionally that belonged to me.
Something I could continue developing regardless of which company employed me.
The US CPA was one of the most practical ways I found to begin doing that.
And looking back, that decision eventually took my career much further than I expected when I first opened an accounting textbook in Korea.
If You’re Considering the US CPA While Working in Korea
If you’re currently working in Korea and thinking about the US CPA, I think the first question shouldn’t be:
Ask yourself something more specific:
“What do I want the US CPA to change about my career?”
If the answer is simply adding another line to your résumé, the time and effort may not be worth it.
But if you’re trying to build accounting expertise, move toward an international career, enter a related professional field, or create more options beyond your current company, the calculation can be very different.
That’s ultimately why I started.
I wasn’t trying to escape a bad career.
I was trying to build a career that could survive beyond one company.
