Linsanity & Helping Others

I have a confession to make. I’m still gripped by my platonic love for Jeremy Lin.

However, my reasons are completely rational and logical even a year after Linsanity took America by storm.

My sociologist side has been impressed by the way Jeremy Lin has pushed through racial boundaries and redefined what an American basketball player looks like. This past year has challenged us (America) to re-examine our racial beliefs and think about how those beliefs reappear in the media and more importantly in our actions and thoughts.

Then my family side was super excited by the fact that my cousin‘s hard work paid off and his film, Linsanity went to Sundance!

Lastly, my graduate and accounting side loved the Jubilee Project’s “The Last Pick” and the focus on helping others. This past spring semester, building relationships has been a major topic in my life from talking about how to build relationships with my AICPA mentor to discussing expanding your social capital in my Ethics class with Tony Rose. Helping others is one way to make friends and expand your social capital. In “The Last Pick,” the Jubilee Project does a great job of showing why it’s important to help others and that help sometimes comes from those who you least expect it to come from at the most unexpected times. In the Youtube video, when the boy sends Jeremy a text to boost Jeremy’s spirits, my aww side kept thinking “how cute!”

Now as one of my professors, Lori Smith would say, “What’s the takeaway?”

Go out into the world and help a friend or a stranger. Be like my friend, George, who always makes time to explain a difficult accounting concept to any of his friends when they’re confused.

Sidenote, I have been a fan of the Jubilee Project ever since college when I considered being a premed and read Eric Lu’s Elusions blog to better understand what being in Harvard Medical School was like. If you’re contemplating medical school, Eric Lu does a great job describing the exciting aspects of medical school.

No Time to Rest

Go! The theme of my second semester seems to be put yourself in go mode!

Whether it’s…

• Trying out a new restaurant during dineLA Restaurant Week with old and new friends and laughing the night away
• Being part of a Color Throw at the Color Run
• Exploring LA and the beautiful art at the Getty Center
• Randomly running into crowds of friends/people in my program at the sandwich AND pizza places
• Patting yourself on the back for completing lots of sweat-filled, butt-shaking, awesome workouts (Thank you, Zumba and Nike Training Club!)

There’s always something going on or something fun to do.

One of my favorite parts about my program is that after a semester of late nights, numerous team projects, and recruiting, everyone has bonded to the extent that you know someone’s going to save you a seat next to them in your next class, you’ll have someone to eat with, and grabbing a group to go explore, hang out, or study is a very doable option.

Can’t wait to see what the rest of the semester holds!

PS – It’s been super exciting hearing from my classmates, who are currently studying for various sections of the CPA  that they have passed the most recent section they were studying for! Props to them for studying hard!

 

Week 3 of Master Swim

 

Can you believe it? It’s already the 4th week of the semester!

This semester, my new goal is to commit myself to Master Swim practice. I’m 3 weeks strong so far and luckily for me, I’ve found a couple of friends in my program, who have also decided to commit to Master Swim.

Plus, on Fridays at noon, I have the lucky privilege of swimming in the pool above.

It’s not easy being in graduate school, but being able to take that 1 hour break every so often and just empty your mind has definitely helped me relieve my stress. It’s important to give yourself me-time whatever that activity may be.

More importantly, afterwards, I feel super refreshed, energized, and just do it.

So, you ready? Let’s go conquer the world!

 

 

Beginning of an End

At this time last year, I was rushing to get my Master of Accounting applications in and anxiously waiting to hear back from the programs that I had applied to. This past year did fly by super fast!

Now, a week of the spring semester has passed by and it’s funny thinking that in less than 4 months, I will officially be a Master of Accounting!

However, in the meantime, it’s time to:

• make the most of the time that I have with my classmates aka hang out, have fun…eat
• eat up LA… nom nom nom and write 100 Yelp reviews this upcoming year
• pass 2 sections of the CPA exam

Let’s do this!

On another note, props to the 49ers for winning the NFC championship and to my cousin, Evan Jackson Leong, whose film, Linsanity premiered at Sundance this past weekend!

SF Tech Trek

This past winter break, with the USC MBA High Tech Association, I was afforded the lucky privilege of going on office visits to Zynga, Autodesk, and Salesforce.com.

(Picture of HTA Visit to Autodesk – I’m the 5th person from the left!)

My top 3 favorite things about my visit include:

1) Checking out each company’s office – Not sure if everyone is the same way, but seeing how each company designs their office is like checking out houses for sale. You may not want to buy the house, but it’s interesting seeing how different companies style their offices based upon office culture.

Zynga incorporated all of their games into the styling of their office.

Autodesk had this really fascinating gallery and they even had 3D printers (I kid you not!) and exhibits about reality capture!

2) Learning about these tech companies from a business/MBA perspective – As a Sociology major, I’m always conscious of the type of lens through which I look at the world through.  Once I start working in audit, I worry that seeing things from the business perspective will become more difficult over time.

3) Being an accounting geek – As I visited these companies and listened to their employees, my thoughts drifted towards the potential accounting problems each company might face. At Zynga, one product manager talked about designing features to increase revenue. To me, essentially this meant revenue recognition issues. How do you apply the traditional revenue recognition rules to decide when revenue is recognized at this company?

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Overall, this Tech Trek was a great insight and provided me with lots of valuable business insights about technology companies!

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On another note, for those in the LA area on Friday, 2/22/13, if you’re interested in the entertainment industry, there is a conference, E2: Evolution of Entertainment Conference 2013, Disruptors in Media and Entertainment, where some chief execs of Sony, Hulu, and Warner Bros will be speaking.

Adventure Pup turned into Snow Pup!

(Picture compliments of my cousin, Melissa)

After Christmas, my mom’s extended family has this tradition, where we head up to Lake Tahoe and spend a couple of days in my aunt & uncle’s cabin. It’s a time to enjoy family bonding (movie and game nights), the warmth of the cabin, and lots of snow fun (meaning 2 awesome days of snowboarding). After a semester of studying hard and recruiting for a job, I was more than ready for this winter vacation.

This year was a little different for my family. We decided to bring my puppy (who no longer looks like a puppy) up to Tahoe with us and he experienced snow for the first time! Adventure Pup transformed into Snow Pup as he discovered a new love (of snow) and the wonders of playing in the snow.

Overall, after a semester of living away from the Bay Area, I definitely have a deeper appreciation for my family and the wonderful times we can share together.

I think it’s time…to start studying for the CPA exam

One semester of my Masters has passed. However, the studying is not yet over. I repeat, the studying is not yet over. 

I start working in the fall in audit as staff and the general advice seems to be to pass the CPA exam before you start working. That advice sounded like a wonderful idea to me especially because who likes to study after long hours of working hard? Terrible, right? 

So, I decided to take 2 exams during my spring semester and 2 exams during the summer to provide me as much time as possible to study and also, so that I can enjoy as much of my last “free” summer before work starts. 

After talking to a bunch of associates and staff, the general consensus seemed to agree that the regulation (REG) and financial accounting reporting (FAR) exams were by far the most difficult. Guess which exam I decided to take first? 

Ding, ding, ding. That’s far, I’ll be taking FAR first, probably in February and then lightening my load by taking audit, and then zipping through the summer with REG and business environment & concepts. 

On the bright side, once you accept an offer with an accounting firm, they actually want you to take and pass the exam ASAP, so they pay for your test prep (Becker, in my case) and pay for you to take the exam (but only the first time you take the exam aka you better pass the exam on your first try or it’s money out of YOUR pocket, yikes!) 

Time to get crackalacking on the studying. Fun times await!

Did you send a thank you letter?

As a kid, my mother always made sure that I wrote handwritten thank you letters for every gift that I received. However, I never thought of writing thank you letters as necessary until I came to USC and Shirley Maxey, the USC MAcc’s Associate Dean and Professor Owens, my communications professor emphasized the importance of handwritten thank you letters in formulating a relationship.

The worst a decent thank you letter can do is get thrown in the trash and as Shirley has said, the best a good thank you letter can do is formulate a life-long relationship.

Professor Owens gave my communications class some useful advice about thank you letters. When considering whether to write a thank you letter, don’t ask yourself whether you need to. But rather, will it help you stand out and form a stronger relationship with someone? And the answer to that question is always yes.

So, did you send that thank you letter yet?

Guess what? The AICPA Loves USC!

Graduate School is expensive no matter where you go and what program you go to. For any future or current PhD candidates out there, even though you’re getting paid to go to school, it’s still expensive in terms of your time and work effort invested.

Some places I looked to for funding included the graduate schools I was interested in and the AICPA. Many graduate schools realize that their tuition plus the cost of living make it an expensive solution. As a result, many programs tend to award their students scholarships and typically, given the current economic status of our nation, private schools will tend to have more scholarships available. The AICPA has a variety of scholarships for accounting graduate students especially if you were not an accounting undergrad aka late bloomer or if you’re of minority descent.

So, to sum it all up, if you’re interested in grad school, do your research and figure out where potential sources of funding are and their deadlines. Ask the graduate schools you’re interested in about their scholarships and eligibility requirements or if they know of other outside parties you can look to for scholarships.

The AICPA decided to grant me the John L. Carey scholarship as a result of having a non-accounting major (Sociology) and ironically, I found out that I’m actually the 3rd consecutive USC MAcc student to have received this honor.

However, keep in mind that graduate schools and the AICPA are only 2 of the organizations that offer scholarships and there’s probably a lot more out there than you realize!

 

 

Last Week of Class

It’s the last week of class and for most people in my program, it’s a bittersweet ending to what has been an intensive, challenging, and exciting semester! Part of me feels sad and yet happy that classes are over. Sad that it happened so quickly and yet happy for a much needed winter break.

Today Professor Smith from my Professional Responsibilities in Accounting class gave a nice tearjerker farewell. My class discovered how much we had learned in 28 days of lecture and realized how far away the first day of class now seemed. She also passed on her keys to success and how they have helped her throughout her experiences. For me personally, her most meaningful key catalysts for success included:

1. Establishing your goals – Make a goal list and revisit that goal list periodically to help you stay focused on achieving your goals.
2. Work well with others – Throughout this semester, one thing every person in my program learned was how difficult group projects can be. Even if you have issues or problems, it’s always important to remain professional and not burn your bridges. Who knows? Someone you have had trouble with may reappear in your future when you need them most and least expect it.
3. Stay upbeat – It can be very challenging to stay positive especially when all you’ve been doing is working and you haven’t gotten much sleep the past week or semester. However, no one likes to be around negativity. Throughout this semester, there have been times when I have struggled to keep a smile on my face. But, look in the mirror and tell yourself that you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. You’re almost there.
4. Make it happen – Lastly, take charge of your life and think about what you want. Be proactive about your needs.

With that advice, to my fellow MAccs/MBTs, using the words of Professor Owens, what have you learned this semester?