Advice for newly switched over accounting student

Advice

Here's a little background about my situation: I got into the business school here and have always had an interest in accounting but after talking with an adviser they were telling me I had a low chance of getting in our "highly competitive" accounting program since I got a 3.0 in the financial accounting course. Granted, at the time I was working a lot and definitely could have done better.

So I started taking finance classes, sort of convincing myself that maybe finance is for me anyway, and ended up getting an internship at a fairly large company as a financial analyst intern. Didn't love the work but overall a good learning experience and my manager raved about me in my evaluations. The company offered me an internship again for the following summer, and I took it even though I was hoping I wouldn't be missing a better opportunity. Started classes back up, and it was time to me to apply to my major (you apply to business school then later apply to your major), put Accounting and Finance both as preferred majors and lo and behold actually got into Accounting. As I was starting to take accounting classes turned out I actually like it and I learned almost all my classmates had public accounting internships. I know PA isn't the only choice but I do now think it is something I really want to do.

This summer with the same company I'll be an SOX internal auditor. I graduate next May and will be applying to grad school with Fall 2018 to get my MAcc. I feel like I'm at a disadvantage since most of my peers have PA internships now. My goal is to get an internship next summer at a fairly reputable PA company as an undergrad graduate and get a job with them after grad school. Do you think my chances are low since I won't have any public experience pretty late in the game? And any advice on landing an internship for next summer?

Posted Apr 26, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC · edited

24
Loading comments…