 I would just say when you get to college really try to network with your professors and your classmates. You're not going to know everything and every little subject. Just communications. Hello everyone. Today I'm going to be interviewing Megan McDonald. She's a scholarship recipient of the PICPA Foundation of 2021. Megan started cross-country training in her last year in high school and now she's running for a nationally ranked college team participating for the NCAA Division III National and I believe right after this you're going to for training. Is that correct Megan? Yes I am. That's good. And she was inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma which is an honor society. Megan thank you very much for agreeing for this interview and you're going to tell us how did you learn about the scholarship from the PICPA? So I learned it from some of my accounting professors at Susquehanna University. Luckily I have really great professors. They're always sending out all types of scholarships even if they're not sure if we can apply to them or not. They just always send them out and I am so lucky to have such a great relationship with my professors. Excellent and why did you choose accounting as a major? So I started off by taking an accounting class in high school and I ended up just really liking it from there. I made a lot of sense but my dad's actually an accountant so I didn't just want to pick it because he picked it so I really tried to evaluate my choices before I got to college and I really liked accounting because it's a skills-based major so I know at the end of my four years at Susquehanna University that I'll have a certain skill set and I also really like how accounting is a flexible major I can work part-time I can work full-time pretty much everywhere needs an accountant every place needs an accountant. Absolutely I like what you said about the skill set and that's what differentiated accounting from other majors like econ or finance you learn something that's useful you learn how to prepare a 1040 you learn how to conduct an audit and those are actual skills that you would use in the real world also Megan it's full-time part-time and also you can be self-employed you can open your own business and that's what that's my next question to you are you planning to go for your CPA exam eventually? Yes I'm planning on going for my CPA exam after my four years at Susquehanna University luckily I have a good professors that I'm able to get it in four years instead of five years or six years at some other institutions so you will be completing the 150 credits in four years yes that's impressive that's impressive and I'm assuming you took financial accounting, managerial accounting at this point correct so you're familiar with the curriculum what advice would you give to accounting students that are starting or non-accounting say okay accounting is is good for you what would you say? I would just say when you get to college really try to network with your professors and your classmates you're not going to know everything and every little subject just communications the biggest aspect to it and I would also say just go to your career center and they have tons of different things for you we did a thing that is called breakthrough at my school we took a big tour bus to New York City and we could network with alumni there and just tour different companies and it just really opens your eyes to all your different options so I would just definitely say that networking is the biggest aspect so networking and through networking I 100% agree to that you're gonna examine all your options your older diversity and this is when you learn about your major Megan thank you so much for your time would let you go for your training train hard good luck and thank you so much for this for agreeing to interview with us thank you so much for having me thank you