TSCPA Marks Accounting Opportunities Month With Successful Student Outreach
TSCPA's 2024 Accounting Opportunities Month (AOM) granted students across Tennessee the chance to learn more about the accounting profession. TSCPA members worked to raise awareness throughout the month of November by visiting high schools, colleges and community colleges. Altogether, 900 students were reached through this year’s school visits.
Volunteer CPAs presented a program designed to increase interest in the various career opportunities an accounting degree can provide. The volunteers shared their personal career stories, highlighting how a degree in accounting can open the doors to many different career pathways. The presentations also emphasized the entrepreneurial aspects of the profession. This year, a total of 35 TSCPA members volunteered at 26 high school events and three college events.
AOM volunteer Dr. Michaelia Black, an accounting professor at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, believes student outreach initiatives are key to attracting the next generation of CPAs. “I love sharing with current and future college students the possibilities that the accounting field can provide,” she said. “As I have spent most of my accounting career in the nonprofit sector, students enjoy hearing how the field of accounting can intersect with their interests and convictions.”
TSCPA’s AOM is an expansion of Accounting Opportunities Week, an initiative started in 2022 by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and state CPA societies to raise student awareness of the accounting profession. In 2023, TSCPA extended its efforts to include a full month, designating November as Accounting Opportunities Month.
“I am pleased with the success of this year’s Accounting Opportunities Month outreach, especially our expansion into community colleges,” said TSCPA President/CEO Kara Fitzgerald, CPA. “I’m grateful to our members who took the time to volunteer to help us share with students across our state all the opportunities available in the accounting profession.”