ACCOUNTANCY
Your route to a dream career as a CPA It’s not boring and it opens doors to many other jobs – that’s according to Kolbie Lespere, Ranisha Simmons, Ciara Rego and Jahlae Outerbridge, who sat down with Your Future to talk about their path to become a CPA. Question: Tell me about your educational background and how you came to be a CPA? 5DQLVKD I graduated from Mount Saint Vincent University in 2018 which is when my CPA journey started. .ROELH I began at Mount Allison University. I began in sciences and wanted to be a pharmacist. I pretty much did a full year of science classes at university, and I just didn't really enjoy them, so then I switched to the psychology and commerce programme. I took all the introductory business classes, and accounting was just the one that I liked the most, so that's how I declared my major, and went through the programme that way. &LDUD I wanted to be a math teacher, but I had a career day where a representative from KPMG came down to speak about accounting. From there on, that's when I made my decision to be an accountant, so I graduated from MSA in 2014, and then I went over to Florida to start my accounting journey. I then started my CPA MRXUQH\ LQ DQG SDVVHG P\ ̰QDO H[DP in 2020. -DKODH I am a graduate of Georgia State University where I received my Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting. I was selected as the 2016 KPMG Scholarship recipient which allowed me to participate in their Summer Internship Program and enter their Graduate Programme as a member of the Tax practice. Q: Do you have be good at math in order to become an accountant? .ROELH I don't necessarily think so. We use a calculator for everything. I use Excel for everything, so none of it's mental 28
math or anything like that. I think you might struggle a little bit more with the academic portion of becoming an accountant if you're not necessarily great at math. &LDUD , GRQ W WKLQN VR , GHĚ°QLWHO\ DJUHH with Kolbie, we use Excel every day, but it also depends on whether you're in audit or industry. Maybe when you actually do private accounting, you might need to do a little bit more math. -DKODH I actually work in tax accounting, so we don't really do that much math. All of our math is pretty much formula driven in Excel. Q: How hard is it to qualify as a CPA, GLG \RX KDYH WR KDYH D GHJUHH ĆśUVW" -DKODH ,W GHĚ°QLWHO\ KDV LWV FKDOOHQJHV Studying for the CPA is a huge FRPPLWPHQW ,W V D ORW RI VDFULĚ°FHV DQG LW requires a lot of consistent studying. I tell SHRSOH VWXG\LQJ LVQ W WKH KDUG SDUW LW V MXVW being consistent. That's the hard part, so WKDW V ZKDW , Ě°QG FKDOOHQJLQJ Q: What is a typical day as an accountant like? 5DQLVKD I just switched over to insurance at KPMG, so I audit insurance companies, which is new for me. I came from enterprise, which mostly looked at local EXVLQHVVHV , YH DXGLWHG D IHZ ODZ Ě°UPV retail businesses, so now I'm looking at the insurance side. I like the challenge. Each FRPSDQ\ V D OLWWOH GLĚŻHUHQW VR \RX OHDUQ something new with each company that you audit. I enjoy learning more about KRZ GLĚŻHUHQW EXVLQHVVHV ZRUN KRZ WKH\ operate. &LDUD Right now, it's 8am to 5pm, but in our busy seasons, it can go until midnight
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or 1am. I'm in the enterprise department, so I do local businesses. One thing I really enjoy about being in this department is the people I work with. Because we're such a small department it's a great opportunity to learn. There's also smaller clients that we work on, where you can get the opportunity to do it by yourself or with the manager, instead of with another senior associate. That's what I look forward to, speaking to my colleagues and having the opportunity to work on something new mostly every other week. In the enterprise department we do local companies, so we get to see into JURFHU\ VWRUHV QRQ SURĚ°WV UHWDLO VWRUHV \RX QDPH LW 7KHUH V VR PDQ\ GLĚŻHUHQW companies we work on, and because our companies are much smaller than the insurance companies, we do get to see WKH FRPSDQ\ IURP VWDUW WR Ě°QLVK :H DV VWDĚŻ JHW WR DFWXDOO\ ZRUN RQ WKH Ě°OH IURP beginning to end. -DKODH I pretty much do tax accounting and compliance for individuals as well as trusts and estates, so the bulk of my work LV SUHSDULQJ WD[ UHWXUQV GLĚŻHUHQW IRUPV IRU our individuals and our trusts, and a lot of research. What I really like about my job Your Future 2021
