On Monday, I attended a meeting of the Accounting Club. The topic was about the accounting recruiting cycle and how to get an internship or a permanent job. The information was beneficial very much to me, and I was kind of shocked that I missed information like this, when I was an undergrad student looking for a new job.
I didn't know about the Accounting Club until recently. There was a Dinner Etiquette event held by CPO a few weeks ago, and it was when I got to know about this club. I sat a same table with Jessica, who is an accounting major student and also a representative of the Club. She talked a bit about the club at that time.
At the etiquette dinner, the guests of our table were representatives from a CPA firm, S&H. I was excited about having a table with them. There was a reason for that. Last summer, just after I enrolled MPA (at that time) program, I attended a local toastmasters meeting as a guest, and met a lady who recently graduated from IUPUI MPA program. She was working for S&H. What made this incidental acquaintance with this lady memorable to me was, as soon as I said to her that I just enrolled MPA, she immediately brought up a name of an accounting professor who's been teaching classes in the MPA program. She told me how wonderful this professor was, and I felt that I should take his class ASAP and find out how true that is. I also wanted to ask about the firm for which she was working, but the chance was missed. The toastmasters meeting started. I could barely get her business card, and I hadn't made any move on that since then. On the day of dinner event, I was able to sit with the representatives of this firm, and could ask what I wanted to ask almost a year earlier.
Now, let me quickly review what I had: A lady at toastmasters meeting left me two names, a name of the firm for which she was working and a name of an accounting professor at IUPUI. I soon afterword took one of his classes, and I felt that it was one of the most exciting classes I've ever taken (Ok, let me be honest here. I have two classes so far that I most enjoyed. Those were F402: Corporate Finance Strategy/Governance, taught by Prof. S, and A515: Federal Income Taxation taught by Dr. K).
Going back to my quick review: I attended the dinner event and met S&H representatives. I met Jessica at the dinner, and learned about the Accounting Club. The club meeting was beneficial, and I was thankful that I could attend. One another thing: at the meeting, I met an accounting graduate student. She is from China. We exchanged contact info, so we may keep in touch. I realized how interconnected people can be across situations, and how easy it is to start networking.
A little thing that I keep in mind when I do my small networking effort is that I keep the things going forward. I pass the information to the next person (or simply anyone), hoping someone at the end of this network-web may be feeling "I got connected!".
