Our accounting majors received invaluable real-world experience this summer at the nation’s Big Four accounting firms–Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC.
Chris Stutzman ’18
Senior Megan McFadden, of Glen Brook, N.J., worked as an auditing intern at PwC (formerly Pricewaterhouse-Coopers), a position she was offered after completing the company’s three-day leadership program last year. Both experiences bring her closer to her dream of working at one of the Big Four accounting firms.
“I think this internship absolutely prepared me for my future career as a certified public accountant,” McFadden says. “A lot of the work that I did for PwC is actually at the level of difficulty an experience associate would receive, which has given me a great opportunity to learn a lot.”
Senior Jeremy Witter, of Shippensburg, Pa., was accepted into KPMG’s Build Your Own Internship program, which allowed him to gain experience in two accounting practices as opposed to one. Witter chose tax and audit.
“Having a rotation into a new area during the internship naturally brough with it a steeper learning curve and new challenges,” Witter says. “But I was prepared to navigate that.”
He worked alongside fellow senior Chris Stutzman, of Gilbertsville, Pa., and said they were treated by their colleagues as first-year associates in both the type of work they completed and the way in which more-senior employees communicated with them.
“The most pleasant surprise of my internship was just how much mentoring was involved,” Witter says. “I regularly had one-on-one discussions with different mentors and senior associates about topics ranging from underlying accounting concepts to my professional goals to best practices as I start my career.”
Senior Michael Dolan, of Egg Harbor City, N.J., spent his summer as a tax intern for Deloitte, doing tax planning for hedge and mutual funds clients. He credits lecturer Barbara Martin with setting him up for the right classes early on so that he would be prepared to step in to a demanding internship.
“She pointed me in the right direction,” he says. “I’m doing the things right now that I want to do in my career. I could see myself here for a while.”
Additionally, juniors Ryan Seibert, of Harrisburg, Pa., and Megan Duck, of Madisonburg, Pa., completed externships with both KPMG and EY (formerly Ernst & Young) this summer. They will both intern with KPMG next summer.
Juniors Seth Berger, of Lafayette Hill, Pa., and Noah Schairer, of Lititz, Pa., will intern with KPMG in the winter.
