anyone work in the finance/commerce sector?

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I'm considering transferring into a buisness college, and thought I'd hear what some people here think about it. This includes accounting, marketing, etc etc anyone have a job in buisness/commerce/finance?

I'm a Business Analyst which means that I develop and run reports and analyze business trends and provide recommendations, with the occasional presentation. It is a tight field to get in to though (few job opportunities), so I wouldn't recommend making that a long term goal. There are other "Business Analyst" positions, but they are more from a project management approach and I have a much harder time with those (I'm in one right now). When I can be near or around data for most of the day, I'm a much happier person and, oddly, more social, then when I HAVE to interact with other business groups as part of my job description.

You mentioned Marketing in your post - I would say that is the closest degree toward what I do, but with a much higher number of job opportunities. I think that Statistics would also be quite useful for something along these lines.

If this is anything that is even remotely interesting to you, I would recommend peppering your schedule with a few technical classes - data or database related would probably be best. I use SQL almost every day. I would love to have more technical database knowledge to be able to go even further with it. Also - not to play this down by any means - MS Excel is a HUGE skill that I've developed over the years. There's a lot more to it than people would initially think and it is almost a requirement for any business related position - to either be able to read reports to to develop them - Excel is used quite a bit. To give you an example of level of expertise - I've been doing this for 7 years now and I would be rated Advanced to Expert level - I've used VBA quite a bit, done complex Conditional Array formulas, Data Analysis Add-Ins, and trained many a user.

I hope this helps.

One last thing - my grandfather was an accountant - he was very math brained and seemed to really love it. I always thought it would be a bit too boring for me - not enough data, too much adding. I think I take after my grandfather the most of all people in my family, and it is possible he's an Aspie too (but at 90, it might be difficult to convince him.) I guess I'm just saying that there are a lot of different options within the business field that could be rewarding careers for math-oriented Aspies.

I work in public accounting as an auditor. Even though you have to deal with clients (and make small talk...ugh) to get information from them, it isn't that bad a job. I excel at the technical work and can fake the small talk so I can function. When I worked in private industry accounting, I only had to deal with an immediate boss who left me alone most of the time.

I would recommend to try a financial accounting class out to see if you like it. It can be boring, but accounting is totally different from the class room to the practical real world application, though school gives you a good theorectical knowledge base to draw from.

If you go that road, it may also be a good idea to prep for the CPA exam.

One of my current dilemmas is realizing that while I have skills to spare in being an accountant/auditor, I may lack the ability to become a decent supervisor and manager. I am currently looking at my options to do a PhD in accounting and become an accounting professor, since I loved to teach and tutor others in accounting.

There are tons of new accounting/audit jobs created because of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which was passed by congress in response to many of those business reporting scandals and bankruptcies. Analysts are predicting that for the next 8 years or so, it is prime time to jump into accounting.