In case you blinked recently, you may have missed the beginning of a new school year. As a corollary, the start of last school year was a whole year ago, which deserves reflection. The change we have experienced and the personal improvement we’ve achieved in the last year are astounding. Last August, few current MAC students could have predicted the full extent of how much they would learn and personally develop between then and now. At that time, some of us were just beginning the process of pursuing a higher education in Accounting. We weren’t sure what we wanted to be “when we grew up.” We had not yet submitted our applications to The University of North Carolina. Stacie Hewett had not yet interviewed us for admissions.
Now we are gaining valuable technical skills and being transformed into future global business leaders. Beginning in May, those of us who were not Business Administration majors at UNC in undergrad (read: most of us) endured a rigorous summer school program. This program consisted of seven courses in accounting, economics, business taxation, finance, and even spreadsheet modeling.. Meanwhile we attended presentations for several recruiting firms and stayed after to talk with staff members. The summer courses, taught by world-class faculty, quickly provided an incredibly solid basis of accounting knowledge that prepared us for informed discussion at these presentations. They say Accounting is the language of business, and now we’re all speaking it The comfort level and confidence level of the typical MAC student in business conversation has improved markedly since May.
Fall classes began on August 9th, practically as soon as the summer courses ended. We continue to make major personal decisions about our future careers: the choice of audit or tax track; the selection of up to two cities to list on our personal data sheets; and currently, from which firms to request an interview. When compared to some of last year’s more big picture decisions, the progress is unbelievable. Less believable still, exams are already back on the schedule, with a midterm in Contracts & Business Law coming up this Saturday morning and others to follow.