Rochester Hosts World of Accounting Field Trip

By Rick Gifford, CPA

World of Accounting is a program that provides students with information regarding the opportunities available to CPAs. The program, in its third year, recently hosted a field trip for high school students who have an interest in finding out about careers in accounting.

On March 31, the Rochester Chapter hosted a field trip to downtown Rochester and a tour of the offices of Deloitte & Touche for the benefit of 63 Monroe County high school students. In addition, students had the opportunity to talk informally with accounting professionals, NYSSCPA members, college students and professors.

After assembling in the Nixon Peabody LLP boardroom in the Clinton Square building in downtown Rochester, the students were welcomed by Rochester Chapter President Steven Chatwin and Harry Howe, a professor at SUNY Geneseo and an event organizer. The students heard speakers who included former chapter president Bill Dresnack; Kristie Font, of Eldredge, Fox & Porretti, LLP; Brian D’Ambrosia, CFO of Rochester Sports Group, and Gerad Levey, of the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance. Each of the accounting professionals discussed the challenges and rewards of a career in accounting, stressed the wide range of opportunities and career tracks available to accounting majors, and conveyed a vivid sense of how rewarding and satisfying they found their jobs.

After the presentations and a question-and-answer session, Ellen Defendis, of Deloitte & Touche, provided a brief overview of her firm and discussed the career opportunities available with a global public accounting firm. Deloitte & Touche staff took the students on a tour of their Rochester office and answered questions about what a business day is like for accountants. After a Society-sponsored lunch, a panel of professors and college students from SUNY-Brockport and SUNY-Geneseo fielded questions about the accounting major, the 150-hour rule, courses of study and other related issues.

Thanks to the considerable interest from students who participate in the program, the chapter plans to hold one or two of these events on an annual basis.

In keeping with the theme that a career path as a CPA opens many doors and creates a foundation for a wide variety of careers, the World of Accounting organizers—chapter vice president Steve Morse (smmvfa@rit.edu) and SUNY Geneseo accounting professors Harry Howe (howeh@geneseo.edu) and Rick Gifford (gifford@geneseo.edu)—are particularly interested in hearing from chapter members who might be willing to share their career experiences at future World of Accounting events. Please contact them for additional details.

Rick Gifford is an accounting professor at SUNY Geneseo.