Life of an auditor

What's your advice for a soon to be college grad interested in the big 4 but dealing with the new 150 credit hour law? It seems like everyones advice is to go right for your masters after graduation. Is the Masters program worth it or would extra credits from a community college still look good? At the end of the day, all that matters is your CPA. Your masters program's only help is getting you credits towards the 150 requirement. If the costs are much higher for a masters vs credits from a community college, then just do the credits from the comm college. I've seen many either do the masters or the credits from the comm college, but nobody really cares as long as you have your CPA. The two kinds of people who get their masters in accounting are - a) people who need the 150 and b) people who were non-accounting majors but now want to switch to an accounting career.  

Still in the questions from September,backed up... Was hoping you could help me out. Due to the staffing issues that I've heard are plaguing all of the Big 4 many teams are severely understaffed. What advice would you give to a first year who's starting on a team where there are no Seniors and has to work directly with the manager.  The Big 4 are just getting destroyed by staffing issues, it is really bad. I understand that the fat had to be trimmed in  2008, and I have no issues with that move. But they really need to do a better strategizing hiring. Given the amount of inactivity in the markets from 2008-early 2010, many knew the M&A,IPO activity was bound to shoot up. So they should have anticipated this and hired more. Now the Firms are trying their best to poach from other Firms, and offering all sorts of incentives and bonuses to jump ship, which was previously a no-no. Looks like all bets are off at this point. People who are sitting pretty at this point are the...

Been a couple months,sorry for the delay.On to the questions... I currently work for the a department of the US Government doing some auditing and analyzing of government-sponsored and government-assisted programs. I will be completing my master's degree in accounting next spring and have begun all of the big 4 interviews this fall. My question is, how common or "normal" is it for people to move from the public secotr to the private sector, or vice versa? I have been told that it would be a good idea to stick with the federal job for a few years and then attempt to move to a big firm, but not to stay for too long because I wouldn't want to get "stuck" working for the government due to its percieved laziness. And on the other hand, I have been told that it would make no sense to work in the private sector and then return to the government stuff later...Anyways, I am currently more in favor of taking an associate audit position at the big 4 if I was to be o...