A Day in the Life of an Applied Accounting and Finance Student at Fordham

Fordham's Gabelli School of Business at Rose Hill has tons of opportunities for students of all schools and majors. From internships, to clubs, to case competitions, to networking events, there is something for everyone at the Gabelli School. I have taken advantage of many of the Gabelli School's opportunities over my last few years here, and I am continuing to do so now as a senior. In this blog, I will be discussing my experience as an Applied Accounting and Finance major at Fordham. 

Fordham's Beta Alpha Psi students volunteering with KPMG professionals

Majoring in Applied Accounting and Finance at Fordham has been an amazing experience, and has been filled with so many amazing opportunities! I am a part of Fordham's chapter of Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) an honor society for accounting and finance majors. In this society, students have the opportunity to network with professionals from Big Four accounting firms, mid sized accounting firms, banks, and other commercial companies. As a part of our membership, students in Beta Alpha Psi also have the opportunity to participate in fulfilling community service events. My favorite BAP community service event was an event sponsored by KPMG's Family for Literacy last semester. Fordham students went to a public school in Manhattan, and read books to students. The event was a great way for Fordham students to collaborate with accounting professionals while giving back to our community. 

Majoring in Applied Accounting and Finance at 

Fordham has opened the door to so many awesome 

career opportunities! Here's a great picture of me 

at KPMG's National Intern Training in Orlando, FL

Fordham is a great school for accounting majors who want the opportunity to intern and work for large or mid sized accounting firms. Due to Fordham's proximity to Manhattan, many business students can easily intern or work at the firms during the school year or over the summer. Another one of my fantastic experiences while attending the Gabelli School was interning at KPMG for the past two summers. Last May, I also attended one of KPMG's leadership conferences with a select group of students from universities across the country. Next summer, I will return to KPMG to intern in the Audit practice in Manhattan. I am so happy that I chose to attend a school that has allowed me to become involved with so many amazing opportunities related to my major. 

Me at my amazing summer internship 

at KPMG's Montvale, NJ office!

Being an Applied Accounting and Finance student at Fordham has been exciting, challenging, and rewarding. The Gabelli School's extensive academic curriculum combined with amazing opportunities to intern and network with firms has transformed me into a well-rounded, passionate young professional. If you are a prospective student interested in a career in accounting or finance, Fordham will definitely offer you the tools and opportunities to be successful. 

Ubuntu - Don't You Want To?

During spring semester of my junior year, I spent my time in the city of Pretoria, South Africa as part of one of Fordham’s unique study abroad programs. Ever since high school when I learned that studying abroad was a possibility, I knew that it was something that I needed to do! Looking back, it was hands down the best decision I have made. 

I met an elephant in
Kruger National Park on a safari!

Fordham offers a service- learning program in South Africa called “Ubuntu”. Ubuntu is a South African philosophical term that technically means “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity”. In short, it means “I am, because we are”. This concept was really relevant to my experience in South Africa because of the service work I was doing. I worked in an Early Childhood Development Center in a rural community called Erasmus. I spent my time with two different classrooms of young children who spoke no English whatsoever. It was a challenge, to say the least, but I somehow formed incredibly close bonds with each and every one of the children.             

Another unique aspect of Fordham’s program in Pretoria is the community aspect. I lived in a house, about a twenty - minute walk from the University of Pretoria, with twelve other Fordham students. I only knew a couple of these people going into the program, but now they are all my closest friends. You form a very unique, genuine, and unbreakable bond while living with such a small group of people who share the same values about service and social justice as you for six months. 

All of the Fordham Ubuntu students traveling together!

There was no shortage of traveling during my study abroad experience. South Africa is a large country and is incredibly different depending on what city you are in. Although I loved living in Pretoria and am thrilled it was my home for six months, the city of Cape Town was by far my favorite city that I travelled to. What I thought was so interesting about Cape Town was how it was a city of contrast: affluence and poverty, ocean and mountains, historical and modern development. The beauty of this city is really indescribable. The Atlantic Ocean is in sight no matter where you are, as are the beautiful surrounding mountains. I noticed that Cape Town seems to have the positive elements of many of the major US cities combined. It has the palm trees, sunny weather and mountains of Los Angeles, but the cool air and steep roads like San Francisco. It is a bustling metropolis like New York City, but has the old stone buildings to remind everyone of its rich history like in Boston.

The beautiful Hout Bay in Cape Town

Although I am very happy to be back on Fordham’s campus, I long to return to South Africa one day. I cannot imagine winding down my experience with Fordham University in a better or more appropriate way. I am so grateful that Fordham exposed me to such a wonderful country with an incredible history and amazing opportunities to travel.



Written by: Abigail Collins

Service Learning at Fordham

Service learning classes are one of the unique educational opportunities offered at Fordham. This semester I'm taking an English class called Homelessness which fulfills one of my core requirements. 

The class is focused on the experience of homeless people through literature. For example, we read a memoir called Grand Central Winter and the short story Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Each student is required to complete 30 community service hours with a specific organization as part of the course. Our in class discussions connect our service experiences with the texts. The discussions are always thought provoking and often question social problems, prejudices, and injustice.  

My professor is very passionate about the topic and works with formerly homeless people to record their stories. She shared some of her writing with the class and we had the opportunity to meet the men and women in the stories. Earlier this week our class met for a screening of the movie Time Out of Mind where Richard Gere plays a homeless man in New York City. Following this, we discussed the movie along with guests from the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing.

The mission at POTS is to provide a loving community in the Bronx which
serve the basic needs of anyone who comes through it's doors.
This year POTS will serve over 25,000 people.

My favorite part of this class is definitely the service aspect. I volunteer with Part of the Solution, also known as POTS, an organization helping homeless and low-income individuals and families. Located just a few blocks from campus, POTS is a type of community dining room which provides hot meals, clothing, food pantry, and other services for homeless and low income families. I volunteer with their Family Club program where I tutor kids once or twice a week for a few hours while their parents receive a cooking lesson. My experience with the organization has been amazing, and the sense of community and care for individuals is inspiring.

I highly recommend taking a service learning course if you have the chance! These courses are just one of the ways that Fordham students demonstrate a commitment to service and community.

My GO! Experience

Earlier this semester, I interviewed for the opportunity to be on one of Fordham’s popular Global Outreach projects. I applied to GO! Navajo, New Orleans, and Alaska. Fortunately, I received my top project choice, and I am preparing with an incredible team to experience Bethel, Alaska from May 18^th to the 28^th.

The bear shirts we sold as a fundraiser in the Alaskan flag colors!

Global Outreach is a program at Fordham that allows students to travel to places they have likely never experienced on a cultural immersion and service trip. Students learn about problems pertaining to the specific area of their project including social justice, environmental, political, and economic issues. Each team consists of 10-15 students, and travel during either winter, spring, or summer break. Every project is unique in duration, focus, and dynamic, but GO! emphasizes its four pillars to provide the most meaningful experience possible; these include community, simple living, spirituality, and social justice. Now that you have a little background on GO! let me tell you about my own experience thus far.

My GO! team at GO! Olympics!

I am participating in the GO! Alaska project, which is one of the summer domestic trips. I have a team of 12 members, including my team leader and chaperone, none of whom I knew before accepting the project. Over the course of the semester, we have had meetings, outings, and other events that have allowed us to become a tight-knit community. These are people I likely never would have met if I had not participated in GO!, but now they are people that I can trust, grow from, and almost call my family. Between fundraisers, Campus Movie Fest, our team retreat, gym sessions, and Chipotle runs, we have bonded so much, and there is no one else I would rather venture into unknown territory with.

We are all so excited for our upcoming project. We have not only spent the semester getting to know each other, but we have also done a lot of research on Bethel and its social issues as well. Because in GO! the motto is "participate, don't anticipate," the team (besides the leader and chaperone) does not know what our activities and responsibilities will consist of when we are there. We, however, have each other to rely on and work with, and with open-minds, I think we will all really gain a lot from our experience in Alaska. 

Giving Back through Theatre: Theatrical Outreach Program

The poster for our show!

This past weekend I was lucky enough to perform in Theatrical Outreach Program’s production of The Laramie Project. Theatrical Outreach Program, also known as “TOP,” is a theatre organization on the Rose Hill campus that performs shortened versions of classic plays in order to make them more accessible to schoolchildren in our community. They perform the shows on the Fordham campus and then take them to various places in the community. Through TOP, many children are able to be exposed to theatre who otherwise would not.

In this scene, cast members portray newscasters reporting on the crime.

Usually, the club performs Shakespeare or other classic pieces of theatre, such as Thornton Wilder’s Our Town  or Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of 

Being Earnest. This show, The Laramie Project, was something new for the club, as it is more modern. It was written in 2000 by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theatre Project. They traveled to Laramie, Wyoming after the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. In the show, each cast member plays multiple characters and the text draws on interviews with the people of the town, court proceedings, and the company member’s journal entries. This powerful, poignant show focuses on the town’s reaction to this hate crime.

In this scene, Reggie Fluty (played by Molly Carney) and Marge Murry (played by Jackie Gawne) discuss the effects of Matthew Shepard's murder on their own lives.

Having never worked with this club before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was an incredible. I met new people, made new friends, and got the chance to really hone my skills as an actor. The show also made me want to direct a show next year which is another opportunity that TOP provides, as all the shows have both a student director and assistant student director. The experience isn’t over yet either! Tomorrow, the cast is traveling an LGBT elderly center in Manhattan to do our outreach and share our work with them. I think this is an incredibly unique way to give back, and I’m grateful to have had the chance to be a part of it at Fordham!

Jumpstart at Fordham

Fordham University is dedicated to social justice and being men and women for others. Fordham encourages all of its students to Volunteer at some point in their Fordham career. This year I joined one of Fordham’s most active community service groups called Jumpstart. Jumpstart is an organization that visits local preschools on weekly basis in order to encourage language and literacy skills in children ages 3-4. Joining jumpstart is one of the best decisions I have made here at Fordham.

This is me and my jumpstart team.

On Tuesdays and Friday my jumpstart team and I visit La Peninsula, a local preschool.  Before we head to the school, we have a team planning meeting to discuss what book we will read, and what activities we will do with the children. When we arrive at the school we separate into groups. Our first group activity is going over the letters and sounds of letters in the children’s names. After that, we read our book of the week. Reading the book is my favorite part because the children respond really well to them. They laugh and really enjoy the pictures. After books are read we come together again during circle time, where we sing songs and say poems that help develop alphabet knowledge and phonemic awareness. After circle time, the children are given an option of whether they want to go to an art, reading, writing, puzzle, or dramatic play area. All of the activities set up for the children were especially designed to support the vocabulary and content we read in the book. The last thing we do during session is sharing and goodbye. During sharing and goodbye, children are given the opportunity to share what they did during center time with the rest of the class. Of course sharing and goodbye is accompanied by the famous goodbye Jumpstart song.

While jumpstart may be a very large commitment, it is extremely rewarding. I love working with children and jumpstart has given me the ability to do just that. I am so happy to know that I am helping children learn to read. But it’s definitely a two way street, I would say I get just as much out of jumpstart sessions as they do. Watching the kids grasp a concept, or spell their name for the first time is really awesome. In addition, as if the kids weren’t enough jumpstart has fostered so many friendships for me. My team is a group of truly extraordinary people and I wouldn’t have them any other way.

 

Finding What You Love

Whether you’re into sports, theater, gardening or fashion, you will find what interests you at Fordham. Offering over a hundred clubs and activities for students, Fordham will undoubtedly have something that makes you excited to get involved. Fordham is a close-knit community and getting involved on campus is an irreplaceable way to meet new friends and find people who are interested in the same things as you.

One of the best decisions I made at Fordham was to volunteer for a year as a Jumpstart Corps member. Jumpstart is an organization that helps underprivileged preschoolers prepare for kindergarten by teaching them reading and writing skills. As a corps member, I would get to go into a local preschool in the Bronx twice a week and work with these wonderful four-year olds. Every session we would practice their letters, read a new story, and do fun activities based on the story. I would leave the preschool with a smile on my face every time because of the great kids I was lucky enough to work with. 

All of the awesome kids we got to work with every week!!

What was great about joining Jumpstart was that I was put in a group of six other Corps members from Fordham who would work in the same classroom as I did. Sharing such a unique experience together, we all became close very fast. Not only did Jumpstart help me realize that I want to work with kids in my future, but it also led me to meet so many new friends that enjoy doing the same things as me. There are so many amazing clubs and organizations just like this one at Fordham that you should most definitely take advantage of during your time here!

My Jumpstart team and myself saying goodbye at the end of the year after our last day in the preschool

Blog By: Abby Collins