 and as an international you kind of feel like you always feel like you have like hurdles you always feel like you have obstacles and I was like I'm gonna try it but I was like I'm never gonna win it because that's the always like the feeling you it's always like you work hard but you know sometimes things don't like go your way um so I remember I I feel all the the the things I like all the documents um what I really was passionate about was the paper when I got the chance to like tell my story that's when I was like really like okay thank you like finally asking about like what it means for me to be here and what are the struggles for me being here and I I remember I got I got a call saying like you won the scholarship like I won something like I was just surprised like I won something I was just so it took away out of my shoulder. Hello everyone today I'm gonna be interviewing Franklin Castro who's an international student at Gannon University Franklin recently won the PICPA foundation scholarship and he won the the medal of honor at Gannon University. Today he's gonna talk to us about the scholarship how did he learn about the scholarship about the process and about his career as an accounting professional student specifically and an international student from Honduras thank you very much Franklin. Thank you I appreciate it. First tell us how did you learn about the scholarship for the PICPA? I learned about it twice actually I learned about it last year and actually two years ago I I asked someone if I could apply for it and I think they said like I don't require man's I don't think you'd be able to do it or fulfill it and last year I tried I tried I finally tried I was like you know my especially my advisors my accounting advisors really recommended that I applied for it and as an international you kind of feel like you always feel like you have like hurdles you always feel like you have obstacles and I was like I'm gonna try it but I was like I'm never gonna win it because that's the always like the feeling you it's always like you work hard but you know sometimes things don't like go your way so I remember I I filled all the the things I like all the documents what I really was passionate about was the paper when I got the chance to like tell my story that's when I was like really like okay thank you like finally asking about like what it means for me to be here and what are the struggles for me being here and I I remember I got a I got a call saying like you want a scholarship like I want something like I was just surprised like I wanted something I was just so it's it took away out of my shoulder you know that's good and you never gave up although the first year you did not apply you didn't give up you tried the following year and that's that's a great attitude not only about the scholarship about about everything don't give up try again and again and again that's really good as an international student what would you say or as a student in general as an accounting students well what advice would you give to accounting students if they are full time on campus or doesn't have to be full time on campus as an accounting student what would you advise accounting students to do to succeed I say uh you know be passionate about what you were studying like I know accounting you know people go it's like oh you have to go through excel excel sheets and just do all that and balances the equation and stuff like that I think it's more than that like in my case like I want to be a forensic accountant eventually like I want to work for the government eventually because accounting is so applicable it's so like you can use it anywhere you want to uh so like accounting opens so many doors that you don't think you could open exactly be passionate about what you're studying not only about accounting but anything that you're studying just love it exactly learn about any what about what are you involved on campus uh an accounting clubs or anything like that um initially what I became part is more is like I became part of fraternity and for fraternities you really like business majors because you know it's like an organization too so you have to learn how to run it exactly and that really it just it's it's really amazing because as an international being part of a fraternity sounds like weird like you don't have that back home so as soon as I became part of that I'm like I'm going to use my accounting mind set up like documenting because we have we have year-end reports in a fraternity so documenting stuff and and putting into stuff and turn that in that's like that became just so applicable and so useful and like in my classes too just because I was like I'm going to be organized I'm going to be my best I'm going to treat my classes like I'm running an organization I see did you play any leadership roles in any organization yeah I was a president of the but the PI COP of fraternity I also uh I run the uh I was chair of the intercultural collaboration committee for the honors program in the university the goal of committee was to like make sure domestic and international students like interacted somehow so what we did is we had like students in the honors program who are domestic students and every time there was an event for like international students we made sure we collaborated in the event somehow like you know help like with set up help with like logistics and stuff like that and it helped out because you we went to so many cultural events that eventually people started meeting each other and interacting so that was like obviously one of my own goals that's interesting that's interesting and I'm assuming down the road you're going for public account is that correct correct um eventually I'm currently taking my master's to get the 150 credits okay eventually I want to think the CPA and my angle like I said I really want to be a forensic accountant I think that's an unexplored field like even my minor my minor when I was an undergraduate was criminal justice and even though it's not needed I just really wanted to learn about like criminal justice and how things worked um then you see as a forensic accountant and accounting is something that could be like more like in basic you know money laundry tax evasion stuff like that and that's I think that's really interesting absolutely and I hope I'm not sure if you know about this that congress is there they're circulating a bill that might make accounting part of the stem program if accounting becomes part of the stem program that's going to make your life much easier as an international student to stay longer than those what you have two years right now after graduation and hopefully you will have five or seven and more opportunities so fingers crossed that that's them that's them classification will will will be realized in congress Franklin it was great I mean I I truly enjoyed talking to you thank you for sharing your experience with us and most importantly talking about the PI CPA scholarship and you know being a member of the PI CPA student member you know you'll have opportunities for a scholarship meet the meet future employers leadership roles professional development so I encourage all students who are listening join the PI CPA student membership it's free it's going to give you access to many different resources it's going to connect you with future employers with other students so don't hesitate and that's your way to become a CPA