Academics, Career, Employment, Events, MPA Council, MPAC, Recruiting, Student Life

First Impressions

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First impressions are important because they always last, and the same goes for my entrance to the MPA program. Notwithstanding a brief visit last fall and interacting with career services over the summer, my first impression of the actual MPA program began just a few weeks ago when all the new Traditional MPA students met, many for the first time. It was orientation week, and we were finally starting the journey we had been planning and anticipating for several months.

As we all gathered in the large banquet hall set aside for the first day, I was nervous about the people I would soon meet. What was everyone going to be like? Where was I going to fit in? Quickly, the fear passed to excitement as I began introducing myself to my new classmates. I’ve always enjoyed meeting new people, and there was no shortage of interesting backgrounds to discuss. Various schools, different areas of the country, and multiple nationalities were represented in the newest cohort. One thing we all had in common was our ambition to succeed and the stuff to make it happen.

Most of orientation week was centered on career services and academic planning. Vinh Nguyen spent time speaking with us about the different career paths available to MPAs. The “industry, audit, or tax” question could be a dissertation on its own, but it was something that many of us were still struggling with as we approached our first day of class. We had the chance to meet our professors at a breakfast and then hear their perspective on the “industry, audit, or tax” question. Also thrown in the mix were several events where we had to make our first impression on potential future employers: an etiquette dinner, a networking reception, and a career fair were all on the bill for the first week. We even had a chance to socialize as a class at a pizza and bowling party thrown by the MPA Council.

Back to first impressions, though. The professors are clearly passionate about what they do, and it is evident that they are proud to be a part of the MPA program. I’m sure you are aware of how big of a difference it makes when a teacher is excited about what they are teaching, and these folks have it. The career services department is top notch from their support and preparation to facilitating interaction with future employers. I ended the week with a pleasant optimism about my job prospects. The students I will be learning alongside are an extraordinarily bright and diverse group of fun people. The connections I made that week are sure to last a lifetime. Hopefully I left a good first impression on a few people, too!

Austin, Sarah, Student Life

Around Austin in 30 Days

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Like many UT students, I started making a mental bucket list of things to do in and around Austin the moment I set foot on campus as a freshman.From food trucks and swimming holes to the plethora of music opportunities, Austin is full of great things to do. Sadly, while balancing homework, exams and class, something always got in the way of whittling down my list. Now that I’m about to graduate and leave Austin for good, I decided it’s finally time to start exploring, and thus, the month of May became 30 days of experiencing Austin to its fullest.

First things first, I started out with the basics – delicious food. So far I’ve made it through Sno Beach, some food trucks, some tried and true classics like Hula Hut, Mozart’s, Madam Mam’s, and even made my way out to Lockhart for some killer barbecue. After all, you gotta eat, right?

After that I moved on to some less calorie-enriched south Texas activities – a Spurs game, swimming at Barton Springs, and climbing Mount Bonnell. Truth be told, I still have a long way to go on my list. Even if I did something Austin-y every week I don’t think I would ever run out of things to do. Now that classes and finals are out of the way, it’s time to make some progress on that list!

What Austin spots are on your bucket list?

 

Austin, Jamal, Student Life

A Weekend of Sunny Rays is Good for the Mind

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I spent this past weekend outside; eating dirt on the soccer field, (that’s fútbol to my Hispanic friends and football to my European buddies), flinging Frisbees around campus, and exploring Austin’s Mount Bonnell. The past couple of weeks have been a little stressful with school, work, and trying to get a hold of my personal life. All I needed was a date with Mother Nature to let it all go.

2013 Business World Cup Competition

Jamal rocks the soccer field.

The Business World Cup brings together the McCombs Affiliated Student Organizations (MASOs) to compete in a 5 on 5 soccer tournament. Teams have the chance to win McCombs glory, fame, and the alleged World Cup trophy. I was lucky enough to be allowed to compete with one of the Undergraduate Business Council teams. Unfortunately, we lost three out of three games, one of which was against the other UBC team. The scores were 3-0, 8-0, and 8-2 (I somehow was able to score one of the two points in the last game). There are those that play gracefully throughout the entire game, where they pace themselves and make sure they don’t push their limits too much at one time. I on the other hand, was weaving within minutes of starting and gradually began to play more and more aggressive as the panic began to set in.

I find it interesting that I have to pace myself when playing sports or when using by brain for academics and general schoolwork. Over time I’ve learned that if I don’t maintain a steady pace and take a deep breath every once in a while, I can’t perform at my best.

2013 Texas Blazers Frisbee Fling

Frisbee Fling is an 18-hole disc golf tournament that’s been held on UT’s campus for the past 12 years. All proceeds from the tournament benefit the Texas Blazers Endowed Scholarship for Eastside Memorial High School in East Austin. Definitely a great use of an hour and a half! I got to work on my Frisbee aim, eat a bunch of those Longhorn Bars, realize said bars were loaded in calories, smack someone in a chicken costume with a Frisbee  and receive a Gildan 100% cotton t-shirt. After playing in the soccer tournament, I was definitely not at my athletic peak, but I was still able to keep up with the rest of my team without having to keel over.

Trip to Mount Bonnell

Almost immediately after the Frisbee fling, I went to explore Mount Bonnell with a few friends. For those of you who didn’t know, Mount Bonnell isn’t actually a mountain. Though it’s described as being the highest point in Austin, it’s lower than the Jollyville Plateau (according to Wikipedia). While it was more than a little steep, it really wasn’t too bad a climb. We were able to get a great view of downtown Austin and of the tower. I really wanted to see the peacocks that I had heard so much about but I guess there weren’t feeling too friendly that day. I did get a great life-chat with my friends though, resulting in the perfect end to my day.

Though I’ve had more productive weekends for school, I really think this mini-vacation was good for the soul and for me to recuperate from academics. I was able to get some quality thinking in about what I wanted and what was important to me. Despite getting a little redder than I would have liked, there were a lot of qualitative benefits to the weekend. Truly some food for thought.

Career, Jamal

The Pur$uit of Happine$$: Part 3

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Hi everyone,

Like Melissa, I just wanted to cap my experience spending a semester interning. Melissa talked about how she utilized the things she learned from her academic studies for her internship, so I thought I would talk about some of the softer and more intangible skills that I took to public accounting from my time at UT.

Being patient: I assumed that when I would start my internship, I’d be put in the same room to interview some high ranking officers. Surprisingly, that doesn’t happen in your first week. I know as business and McCombs students, we want to be given the opportunity to prove ourselves and be challenged. However that takes time. Being given grunt work is how you learn about the industry you work in and allows you exposure to the professionals that you hope to become.

There’s no “I” in “Team”: I can’t even tell you the number of times I made dinner, Route 44’s, and Walmart runs. As an intern, your number one prerogative is to keep your team happy. Auditing/Performing Tax Services/Assessing Risk comes second. Help out where you can and do what you can to help the team. And keeping them content makes them more inclined to let you do real work.

Being professional: I don’t care how wacky the client or senior management is, professionalism is a requirement in the working world. We have to play extra, extra, extra nice. When I interned, there was definitely a relaxed atmosphere. People were cracking jokes, talking about current events, analyzing Sean’s actions from The Bachelor. It definitely made 8 hours a day in the audit room fly by faster, but as an intern, it’s important to distinguish when you’re overstepping your boundaries. Save all that raunchy humor for the intern events!

Accountants are people too: I’m sure it’s been drilled into your heads if you’ve done MPA spring recruiting, but accountants are people too, and they don’t want to talk about work all day. The same principal applies to when they’re working. Yes they work hard, but everyone needs a couple breaks throughout the day. When you aren’t calling XYZ bank to confirm 123 account, ask how their daughter’s play went or if they enjoyed their trip to the beach over the weekend.

Internships are an incredible opportunity to learn these little lessons that have a major impact on the success of your career. I’m grateful for the experience but so glad to be back at McCombs!

Internships, Melissa, Student Life

Melissa Takes Boston: Part 4

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Hello everyone!

I am back with one last installment about my internship experiences this semester. McCombs provides  its students with a well-rounded business education and as I reflect on my internship, I realize that I used far more than just what I learned in my accounting classes. I thought I would share with you all how I used the McCombs core curriculum to succeed at my audit internship.

Finance: As as auditor, you will be exposed to a variety of financial instruments for which you need to audit and a background in finance is very helpful. I couldn’t have audited equity if I didn’t first understand present value!

Operations management: Throughout the course of the audit, you are exposed to the entirety of the business. As you audit certain areas such as inventory, you will identify fluxes (variances) that will need explanations. With my knowledge of operations management, I understood the nature of a supply chain (obtaining supplies, manufacturing, distributing, etc.) and thus I was able to dive deep into the numbers and understand what exactly was happening behind the scenes.

MIS: The MIS department will tell you this, and it’s definitely true- MIS is EVERYWHERE! Whether its the implementation of a new accounting system or database, or RFID tagging on your client’s inventory, you are definitely going to be exposed to a variety of information systems as an auditor.

Business communications: My BA324 experience is certainly a cliche one- I was a terrible public speaker (or as my professor so gracefully described it, an “inexperienced public speaker”) and the presentations and exercises in BA324 were crucial to my success in this realm of the business world. As an auditor,  you will need to be able to speak professionally with the client.

Management: As you move up in the public accounting world, or even if you leave and work in industry, eventually you are going to be in charge of some of your colleagues. And even before that, you are going to be the one being managed. This being said, the concepts that we are taught in management are always going to surround us in the business world.

Marketing: One thing that stuck with me from marketing classes, and something that I try to use in my career, is that you have to know how to market yourself. This trait did not apply so explicitly to my actual internship, but moreso the recruiting process that led up to it. I had to know how to showcase my strengths as I recruited so that my potential employers knew that I would be an asset to their firm.

I just think that McCombs is great and I hope you all agree! Remember this week that you can donate for BBA Legacy (even though we are MPA students- some of us are BBA too!)

MPA Student Life Blog