…but don’t have an undergraduate degree in accounting…or a business discipline at all.

While I’ll admit that this isn’t the norm for our program, there are a number of tMPA students with a nontraditional background, myself included. The other variations of this program, iMPA and ECON-MPA, are designed for people with a business background, and the majority of tMPA students have similar degrees.

For us oddballs that want to be accountants but didn’t figure it out as an undergrad, there are not many options when it comes to a master’s program. Many programs are only designed for that university’s  undergraduate accounting students or accounting graduates from another university (though none of them explicitly say this on their website.) I had a handful of options at best, and luckily the MPA program here is flexible enough to accommodate people with an unconventional background.

I narrowed my options down to four schools or so and started the basics of all their applications. The only one I went forward with in the end was my UT application. (Our Fall 2016 application is live! For helpful tips check out the MPA Admissions Blog.) That’s right-I only applied to one program. I was relying on my hard work at NYU, my improved GMAT score (I took it twice), and my unique skill set. I realize that this was a semi-risky move, but UT was the only place I really wanted to go. If I was going to uproot my life in California to move cross-country for the second time in two years, I wanted to be taught by the best, challenged by the best, and recruited by the best.

And so far, it has paid off. I’m very happy to have joined the MPA family (because you will see your classmates more than whoever or whatever is waiting for you at home) and can’t wait to see where this adventure will lead.