St. John’s Accounting Majors Turn Internships into Jobs

St. John’s University accounting majors are achieving great success in the burgeoning market for accountants. All 16 students who recently completed paid internships at KPMG, one of the “Big Four” public accounting firms, were offered jobs after graduation. Academically-talented students are courted by recruiters from all of the major public accounting firms, says Professor Adrian P. Fitzsimons, accounting and taxation department chairperson. “St. John’s graduates who majored in accounting are well regarded in the marketplace. They get job offers before the recruiting season begins.”

The Peter J. Tobin College of Business has more students enrolled as accounting and taxation majors—751 on all campuses—than in any other major. The College offers 26 distinct majors in accounting, undergraduate and graduate degrees, and a new five-year (or 150-credit) program in which accounting majors receive both their bachelor’s degree and either a master’s in accounting or taxation, or an M.B.A. with a concentration in public accounting. Students must apply towards the end of their third year for the accelerated graduate-degree program, also available to part-time students. There are close to 3,000 students overall in the College. The Queens campus offers both a day and a night program in accounting; Manhattan and Staten Island campuses offer the accounting program at night.

Accredited Accounting Program
The accounting program is accredited by AACSB International - The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, a special credential held by only five business schools in New York State. The Tobin College of Business is one of the five.

Accounting students typically do one or more paid internships, regardless of whether they receive course credit. Those who request course credit for their supervised work experiences must pay for the credits, write a paper, and meet other requirements.

As the busy season for accountants approaches—January through April—most accounting students (third year and above) gain valuable experience and supplemental income by working part-time at accounting firms, says Professor Fitzsimons. “All public companies are required to file auditors’ reports by March,” he adds, “and the tax season continues on until mid-April. Almost all of our students get part-time jobs. They’re sought after because they have strong skills and they know how to manage their time.”

Another reason the accounting graduates are so popular with leading accounting firms is that they are successful there. At Deloitte & Touche, another one of the “Big Four” public accounting firms, a report issued last year indicated that 63 percent of the St. John’s graduates hired over a four-year period stayed with the firm.

Big Demand for Accountants
Accountants are in big demand since Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act with its strict reporting rules in 2002 in response to the Enron and WorldCom scandals, in which these giants projected false pictures of their financial health. “The Sarbanes-Oxley Act doubled the workload of accountants,” says Professor Fitzsimons. “Public companies are now required to issue reports on the internal controls they have over their financial reporting as well as report on their financial statements.”

Running a corporation is so complicated today that most companies’ chief financial officers are accountants, he contends.  “People think that accountants just check a company’s books [financial records].  We do much more than verify credits and debits; we evaluate financial record-keeping systems to determine whether they’re accurate and effective, and we advise clients about the tax implications of transactions.

Students Recruited on Campus
Recent graduate Pauline Livaditis had her job lined up at Ernst & Young before she finished school. “The friends I had classes with all have jobs—they were recruited on campus,” Livaditis, who graduated with a combined master’s in business administration and an accounting degree, told Reuters News Service in a published report. She began a paid internship at Ernst & Young two years before graduation, and she says she was “one of at least 15 classmates” offered jobs by the accounting giant.

Akash Bhatia, a fifth-year student in the B.S. in Accounting and M.B.A. program, has been working at KPMG since March 2004. During his first internship he worked in auditing and taxation; now he’s in the firm’s Department of Professional Practice, which provides policy direction and central support to all KPMG offices. “The people I work with have 10 to 12 years’ experience, and they let me do research and help prepare presentations for the firm’s largest clients,” he says. “Last spring, I was flown out to Palm Springs for a week of training.” Bhatia, who is working and attending business school classes at night, has accepted a position with the firm after graduation.

Melvin Warren, a fourth-year student in the five-year B.S. in Accounting and M.B.A. program, has also turned his internship experience into a job. The president of the St. John’s chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants, Warren says his exposure to recruiters who attended his organization’s meetings helped land him an internship in the Audit Department at Price Waterhouse Coopers last summer. This fall, he received job offers from 10 firms including each one of the Big Four accounting firms and several major investment banks. He’s decided to stay with Price Waterhouse “because of the relationships I’ve built there and the support I’ll receive as I study for the CPA [Certified Public Accountant] exam. I won’t start there full time until after graduation in 2007,” he says.

Warren, who hails from Atlanta, chose the Tobin College of Business because “it’s one of a few schools with an accredited accounting department. Accounting firms recruit from these accredited schools first.” During his first two years at St. John’s, he worked full time at the post office and attended classes at night. He speaks with amazement that his years of hard work and determination will pay off in a starting salary after graduation in excess of $60,000 per year.

“If you’re a good student, the big firms all want you,” says Lauren Castellano, a fourth-year student who’s the president of the St. John’s chapter of the Accounting Students’ Honor Society, Beta Alpha Psi. She and Vice President Christina Cataldo both worked at Ernst & Young last summer, but have accepted summer jobs with Deloitte & Touche this year to get broader experience. “It’s a real leg up [on the competition] when you join the accounting honor society,” she says. “Forty professionals from public accounting firms attended our recent mixer.”

“Don’t be afraid at college networking events to go up and speak with panelists,” advised Ebony Hoyte, a recent St. John’s graduate who’s a new employee at KPMG. She was quoted and depicted with her KPMG mentor Ron Taylor in a recent Newsday story.

‘Every Graduate Gets a Job’
Networking with professionals in the field is standard at St. John’s, and it’s encouraged with a wide variety of prospective employers. The University’s Career Center brought representatives from 20 mid-size accounting firms and corporations to the Queens campus this fall for an Accounting Job Fair. “Every graduating accounting major gets a job,” says Professor Fitzsimons, a former consultant to Deloitte & Touche who is a St. John’s alumnus.

A graduate of the program he now directs, Professor Fitzsimons received his B.S. in Accounting and his M.B.A. with a concentration in finance from St. John’s before earning a Ph.D. in economics from the New School in 1984. As a Certified Public Accountant and a Chartered Financial Analyst, he is a frequent contributor to accounting, banking and financial journals. The co-author of W.G. &L. Audit Manual, he also helped prepare the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ audit and accounting guide used in the securities industry. He is the president-elect of the Queens Chapter of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.

“Many of our professors also work at prominent public accounting firms,” he says, “and many of our graduates are highly-placed professionals at these firms and at major corporations. Employers welcome our students and graduates because they perform well on the job.”