College:
I went to Fordham University in New York. There's a campus in Lincoln Center in Manhattan and the main campus that I went to in the Bronx directly across the street from the Bronx Zoo (which is free every Wednesday for students so needless to say I've visited there more times than I'd like to admit ha). I graduated in 2008 from the Business School with a BS in Accounting. Exciting stuff, I know!
this doesn't look like its right in the middle of the bronx/new york city does it? crazy, i know.
I basically always knew I would be going to business school and doing something in the field of finance. While it's not the most exciting career path, I knew that I would gain tons of life skills and would have an extremely large amount of job opportunities living in one of the financial capitals of the world. Math has always been my strong suit and once I got all my core classes out of the way freshman and sophomore year I was very happy to say sayonara to long, boring papers about books I had no interest in reading anyway! After taking my intro to accounting class sophomore year, all of the principles came so naturally to me and I knew there was a huge demand in the job market so I marched right down to the dean's office and declared.
Internships:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2005 re-election campaign (summer between freshman & sophomore year)
A small hedge fund in the oil & gas industry (year round sophomore to junior year)
Ernst & Young (summer between junior and senior year)
with my mom after getting my diploma - this belongs in some cheesy college brochure for sure!
Full Time/Post-Grad:
I interviewed during the spring semester of my junior year for the Big 4 Accounting Firms (Ernst & Young, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Deloitte & KPMG) internship programs. If you're an accounting major in college this is the most common career path/starting point. My huge draw to this internship was the fact that after the summer was over there was a full-time offer made if they liked you. Locking down a job before senior year even begins? Sign. Me. Up. Ernst & Young was my first choice based on my office visits and campus career fairs to the 4 firms. I loved their recruiters and the corporate environment. After a rigorous multi-round interview process I found out I got the internship and was thrilled and come late August, a full-time offer was in my hands.
I took the summer after graduation off (freedom!) and started working full time at E&Y in September 2008. I wont bore you with the mundane details but I worked in the Real Estate group auditing Real Estate Investment Trusts...exciting stuff, my friends. I gained an amazing amount of knowledge, excel skills and experience while at E&Y, but after two years of grueling hours it was starting to wear on me. There was about 6 months out of the year that I wasn't even allowed to take vacation during and there were nights (or mornings) that I wouldn't leave work until 11, 12, 1am. For me, the lack of work-life balance is what really got to me in the end. I was craving more responsibility, more freedom and a smaller company atmosphere.
Currently:
I'm going to ease up on the details here since I currently still hold this job, but I work at one of the major sports leagues in the Finance department.
which one??? :)
I LOVE my job. Amazing perks, constantly changing and innovative field and best of all it's a casual work environment aka JEANS! My favorite. My trip to Chicago last week was my very first work trip. There really isn't much of a need for those of us in the finance department to travel since everything is based here in NYC so when the opportunity arose I jumped on it even though between my vacation and this trip I ended up being in 5 airports in 5 days last week. I can honestly say I see myself working here indefinitely & I'm really looking forward to continuing to work hard and move up within the company.
So there ya have it! I'm going to go over and link up with Lindsey and I can't wait to read everyone else's posts!
xx,
C.
