Case Western Reserve: A day in the life of an accounting student

Name: Valbona Bushi
School: Case Western Reserve University
Year: Senior, MAcc student next year
Accounting Experience: Beta Alpha Psi Reporter, VP of Social Events, OSCPA Campus Ambassador, Spring 08 Internship with Ohio-based Cohen & Company CPA firm

The following piece is from a day in my internship journal. We had to keep a journal each week throughout the internship that only the recruiter and our intern buddy were allowed to read. I shared mine with my advisor at school as well to keep him updated on how my internship was going.

I had set up a lunch meeting with one of the partners, but because I was at the client site all day for the review, I completely forgot about it. It wasn’t until Outlook started beeping at me and we were still working and trying to arrange a lunch with our client’s controller. I didn’t want to be the first intern to ditch a partner, and I had been lucky to catch him during busy season. Fortunately it worked out that the controller was busy and I rushed back to Cleveland. The partner was a good sport about it too. The lunch was very informative and I heard many great stories.

The rest of the week has been more productive as I was able to finish two 1065 returns. The program we use is getting easier and easier to navigate through although I still had some problems. I realized later that the directions were all in the training manual we had received in the beginning. I should have spent more time going through it. I really should ask more partners to lunch but am nervous to do so. I want to make a good impression since I want to become partner some day, but classes have only focused on gaining the technical knowledge and not all the soft skills needed in a client-based service like public accounting.

Lesson of the Day: Make sure to keep managers updated on their returns.

If you would like to share your "Day in the Life" story, please send the story in a Word document to AccountingWEB's publisher, Rob Nance.