The last two days have been rather busy. We started yesterday off by heading to Westminster to do a walking tour of the area. We walked past Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, and a few other places. Unfortunately we did not have time to visit them all but we plan on it another day. It was also a little unpleasant because it has been cold and raining the last two days. Today we went back though and toured the Churchill War Rooms and Museum. Here we saw where many of the critical decisions and intel from WWII went. The history was definitely interesting, especially to see the war perspective from the view of a different nation.

We also have completed our first two interviews. The first was with a senior partner at KPMG and the second was with three US CPAs on exchange in the UK doing special IFRS projects at Deloitte. We got some similar answers between the two interviews and some rather different giving the varying backgrounds. Given our semi-limited knowledge and views on the topic, these varying inputs have proven to be interesting. Even Dr. Miller seems to be surprised at what we are finding already.

One of the most surprising things we learned actually has to do with getting a CPA job in the UK. Rather than completing five years of school as we do in the US, in the UK you can get a job after just a year of general education essentially. You could have real accounting background and still get a job. You would then spend three years at university getting trained and then another three years on the job getting specialized field training before taking their exams. Essentially, all trial by fire. In one interview it was mentioned one partner had a PhD in genetics prior to starting at Deloitte. Another had a degree in Greek philosophy. Really strange to hear it done this way.

Tonight we are off to celebrate Carol’s birthday and wander London some more. Tomorrow we are heading to a university outside of town to interview our first professor. Hopefully the sun is shining again and we can enjoy the outdoors when we get back!