Departmental Meeting

Today has been fairly productive.  I got a 100% on my tax quiz @ 8am.  Then I met with my audit group to discuss our paper due next Thursday.  I am going to complete my portion and submit it to the other 2 members by the end of this weekend so we can get it finished early. 

Once I got to work today at noon I had a departmental meeting to attend.  Turns out that our one-hour meeting turned into two hours.  While in the meeting I actually missed a call from a young lady at the Virginia College Savings Plan offering me a phone-interview for a compliance internship over the summer.  I caller her back a few hours later but unfortunately it seems we are playing phone tag.

After returning her call I also checked the SunTrust internal postings page, to find that the position which I applied for about a month ago, was finally taken down.  Hopefully, that means that they are now reviewing all of the applications.  Ultimately, if I can get an accounting position within SunTrust, I would rather take that than abandon ship to go to an actual firm.  At least right now while I am completing my Master's.  I have been here for 4 years in June, and would just hate to throw that much tenure and experience down the tubes for something that is not guaranteed.  Right now it seems that the only accounting positions I can really apply for with actual CPA firms are internships which hold no gaurantee of full-time employment.  Once I finish my Master's however, I will then be eligible to apply for regular full-time positions with these companies. 

Part of me wants to just jump on the 1st opportunity that comes my way so that I can start getting some actual accounting experience, but I know deep down that hasty decisions are often mistakes.  I was offered the position of "accounting associate" with Elephant Insurance which is new to town.  That seemed to be a really great opportunity because I could have gotten on with them from the ground up.  When it came times to establish a more extensive management structure, I would have been there for basically as long as EVERYONE else.  Whereas, with a company like SunTrust which is already so established, I'm going against people with 20, 30+ years of tenure and have to go through a lengthy corporate ladder.  As good as the opportunity would have been for me, I had to turn it down because of the salary.  I would have had to take about a $5.00/hour pay cut which would have made it very hard on me to pay the mortgage, car insurance, etc.

So at this point, I am just steadily applying for positions and internships - waiting for the right opportunity to come along.

Crunch Time

The past few weeks have been pretty hectic.  It looks like the crazy schedule and work load will not be lifting until around May 10th, when I take my last final exam of my undergraduate career.  Tomorrow I have a rough draft due for auditing and a quiz in corporate taxation.  Monday I have a quiz in financial reporting and Thursday I have the final draft due of my audit paper. Meanwhile, I am still working 40 hours a week and also need to try and allot time for doing my CPA exam review.

I recently purchased the review material from CPA Excel.  I did a bit of research and found that, at least for the self-paced version, they were abut half as expensive and came with more resources than Becker. It also came with a USB Thumb-drive which contains the study material as well.  I plan to take the 1st two sections of the CPA exam in July and the 2nd two sections in September.  My hope is to completely finish the exam by the end of 2010, ABSOLUTELY  no later than May 2011, which is when I will graduate with my Master's degree.