While preparing for the ACCA exams recently, I realized that many people are seriously considering the USCPA path — especially those who dream of building a career and life outside their home country.

So in this post, I wanted to share why I decided to pursue the USCPA back in 2022, and how I first started balancing full-time work with studying.

Back in the summer of 2022, after a particularly busy season at work ended, I suddenly felt lost for the first time in years.

I had been working nonstop toward deadlines for so long that once the busy period finished, it almost felt strange to have no immediate goal left.

Around that time, I was approved for nearly three weeks of vacation.

For the first week, I honestly did nothing productive at all.

I stayed home with the air conditioner on, ordered delivery food every day, slept endlessly, and simply rested. Even now, I still remember how comforting that break felt after months of constant work.

But after recovering physically, my mind slowly started moving again.

I began thinking about:

• what frustrated me about my current life
• what I wanted to improve
• and what kind of future I genuinely wanted for myself

At the same time, YouTube kept recommending videos about:

• productivity
• self-development
• “miracle mornings”
• balancing work and study

And strangely enough, that lazy summer became the moment I started redesigning my life.

I think many working professionals eventually experience a similar moment.

You spend years chasing one major goal, finally achieve it, and then suddenly realize:
“What comes next?”

Part of me felt:
“I can’t just let time pass like this.”

But another part wondered:
“Is there really anything left for me to challenge myself with?”

After thinking about it for days, I eventually asked myself a much simpler and more honest question:

“What do I truly want?”

And surprisingly, the answer became very clear.

I wanted to live abroad for at least one or two years.

Not as a tourist.
Not as a short-term traveler.

I wanted to actually build a life somewhere else — working, struggling, adapting to another culture, and experiencing daily life outside the environment I had always known.

Once I started thinking from the perspective of:
“What kind of life do I want?”
instead of:
“How can I become more productive?”

my obsession with laziness almost disappeared overnight.

Then another question naturally followed:

“If my experience is mainly in accounting and audit work, how could I realistically build a career overseas?”

And eventually, I came to a simple conclusion:

Accounting is already built on international standards.

Which means that if I could improve my English and gain internationally recognized qualifications, maybe my experience could become transferable across countries.

(Of course, public accounting work still requires local licensing depending on the country.)

Among foreign languages, English felt like the most practical choice.

And among English-speaking countries, the United States seemed to offer the largest range of opportunities.

That was the moment I seriously began researching the USCPA.

At first, I wondered:
“Would passing the USCPA actually make it possible to work abroad?”

Realistically speaking, certifications alone are never enough.

No matter how qualified you are, entering another country’s job market as a foreign professional is never easy.

So I reached out to people already working internationally and asked for honest advice.

The answer was realistic — but encouraging.

Simply holding the USCPA license would not magically guarantee opportunities.

However, if someone has:

• strong enough English skills
• practical accounting or audit experience
• and the ability to adapt professionally

then opportunities absolutely do exist.

Especially within:

• multinational companies
• global accounting firms
• overseas subsidiaries
• and international finance teams

That possibility alone was enough motivation for me to begin.

Looking back now, the USCPA was never just about adding another certification to my resume.

It represented the possibility of building a different kind of life someday.

In the next post, I’ll share:

• how the USCPA compares with the Korean CPA exam
• how difficult the exam actually felt
• and what surprised me most during the process.

Thanks for reading 🙂