Student perspective

For all of you contemplating a career in accounting, I guess I’ll give you a little synopsis of a day in the life of me “at work”. I wake up at 6 every morning (*gasp*). After 45 minutes of getting ready, I have a nice healthy breakfast (Special K with skim milk is my favourite breakfast of all time). I hop on the GO train, and doze off until we arrive at Union. I get to the Deloitte office (121 King – Standard Life Centre – 5th Floor) at 8am, and log on to my computer. The next 8 hours is different every day, a mixture of analysis, extensive research, drafting official letters and memos and meetings with upper management or the client. I’m in the Indirect Tax Group, and we deal with sales tax (GST, PST) and a variety of other excise taxes (insurance, green levy). As a CA co-op option student, I started off with checklist work. This portion of our practice supports our Audit function (Auditors, in a nutshell, looks at financial statements and provide an objective opinion on the reliability of the numbers), by evaluating the indirect tax numbers reported on the financial statements. We do an analysis of the client’s business and their indirect tax numbers to identify any potential tax exposures. Mainly, I worked on the numerical analysis by doing reasonability tests (i.e. checking our expected numbers versus their reported numbers). This term, as I have gained experience in the practice, I have done more research and compliance work. The great thing about working in public practice is the variety of clients. Currently I’m doing work for a major hotel chain, a car manufacturer, a few banks, mutual funds, an insurance company, a telecommunications company and even a toy manufacturer (whom I am visiting tomorrow). It’s amazing to be able to see how these companies work and to ask them what really happens behind the scenes. There’s a lot going on that most people don’t know anything about.
- Vicky, 4B Accounting and Financial Management (AFM) - Public Accounting (PA)

I’ve been working at a small accounting firm in Ottawa this semester. It’s been a great experience. I’ve had the opportunity to see many files, both corporate and personal, through from start to finish. I’ve definitely learned a lot. I honestly don’t know how anyone could complete an entire degree in accounting and never have any work experience in the field. Actually working on compilations (financial statements), audits, tax returns, et cetera is entirely different than trying to make sense of it in your textbook or during class. It’s obviously very important to learn the concepts and regulations… but you don’t truly understand the how and why until you do it yourself in a real business setting. That’s what has been so great about working with this firm. While I haven’t dealt with many large or national companies, I’ve had a little taste of everything. And most importantly I’ve actually completed it, from the preliminary documentation to final draft of the financial statements, myself.
- Sarah, 4A AFM - PA

I’ve always been interested in management accounting and the competencies that are necessary for the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) designation. Students in the Business and Finance co-op option have more options in terms of which companies they can do their work terms at, which appealed to me. I realized early on that I preferred to work within a company rather than for an accounting firm.

One of my favourite co-op work experiences have been with the Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club. I’ve always been a huge Blue Jays fan, so it was an amazing experience. I worked on assignments given to me by the Financial Business Manager, Controller, and Vice President (VP) of Finance Administration. The work varied from researching Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and commodity taxes, to preparing analyses.

I have also diversified my co-op experiences by working at Deloitte Inc. as a Business Analyst in their consulting practice. My work revolved around financial process re-engineering (in other words, making the finance function more efficient). I was able to work on large-scale projects with some of Canada’s biggest companies.

I believe that my University of Waterloo Bachelor of Accounting and Financial Management (BAFM) and Master of Accounting (MAcc) degrees have provided me with solid technical knowledge in accounting and finance and the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate alternatives, and tremendous practical experience.
- Cedric, BAFM '08, MAcc '08

My co-op work experiences have all been with ScotiaBank, in various departments and roles. I began in Head Office Expense Management where I learnt a lot of the Bank’s basics and the many processes involved in their financial reporting. I then worked in International Banking where I made extensive use of my Spanish along with my financial knowledge. Now I am in Internal Audit where I continue to learn about the many different departments and roles in one of Canada’s most international banks. I was involved in different stages of internal Head Office processes and Sarbanes-Oxley audits, from preparation and planning, to execution and testing, and finally reporting. Working in internal audit is an excellent way to get a deeper understanding of how the bank works since I get immersed in different business areas and processes every time I participate in an audit. It’s also a great way to meet knew people and learn from their experiences.

I believe that my University of Waterloo BAFM will provide me with a solid accounting foundation and will place me well on the way towards a Masters in Accounting and a CMA accreditation. My many language courses in French and Spanish will provide me with valuable skills in an increasingly global marketplace. As my career plans are to pursue a Master’s of Accounting and to obtain my CMA designation. After that I would like to work in International Banking. It would allow me to combine my accounting background with my passion for languages, while working cross-culturally.
- Kaila, 4A AFM

My goal is to gain my CMA and to get a job that so I can put all the skills acquired from Waterloo into practice. My most recent co-op experience has been with TD Securities, working as a financial analyst in the Structured Arbitrage Group (SAG). The group consists of five analysts and another co-op student from the University of Waterloo, Elizabeth. I have learned a lot from my group as they have been really approachable while sharing their knowledge with me. I am responsible for half of the portfolios in SAG, I run daily procedures such as funding and profit and loss analysis, which takes up most of my afternoon. I have also been working on a final project with Elizabeth for the last month and a half focusing on making profit and loss analysis easier and more time efficient.

In my position as a financial analyst I was introduced to many financial concepts. It was challenging as the expectations were high and there was a lot of responsibility on me. I took a few short online courses that TD offered about accrued interest, compounding interest, day count convention, net present value (NPV), time value of money, risk and others to either introduce me or refresh my mind on concepts that will be useful in my job. I also learned in more depth about macros and excel formulas that had been introduced to me in Computer Science 100 (Introduction to Computer Usage). I learned how critical and useful macros and excel formulas are in the workplace and I learned how to apply them in the daily work I did. I also learned how to interact professionally with others in the work force.
- Hector, 3A, AFM - Financial Management