Author: Tobin Goss

Tobin is a Senior Accounting Major who is an active member of the Sigma Phi Omicron housing group. He enjoys playing intramural sports, fishing, going on camping trips, and just hanging out with friends and family.
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Student Internship Spotlight | John Perry

John Perry is a senior Finance major with a minor in Accounting. He is from Vienna, Va. John is a member of the housing group Sigma Phi Omicron while at the same time a member of Delta Mu Delta Honors Society. John’s internship took place in the summer of 2018. The following is the Q&A session that I held with John Perry pertaining to his internship experience. This Q&A provides some insight on an internship for a Finance major.

 

Where did you intern?

Ryan Homes

What was your position?

Home Production Intern

Tell me a little bit about your experience? Likes/ Dislikes?

I loved the job. It was very hands on and interactive. They helped me along in the beginning in order to learn the home building cycle and process, but after that they let me take off and do the work independently. I managed subcontractors, met with inspectors and home owners, and was allowed to run the construction site on my own for two weeks. I can honestly say I have never learned so much in one summer. It was challenging, but I honestly believe the best way to learn is to do the task itself and I learned the ins and outs of the home building process and subcontractor relationships through experience. Running the site was the most fun I had because I got to shoulder all the responsibility while also feeling like I knew what I was doing and got to put it in to practice. The only dislike I had was that some days they didn’t have a ton for me to do, but I quickly learned I could walk the site on my own and learn by talking to the builders.

What skills did you learn?

I learned how to run a construction site on my own, which taught me how to handle a lot of responsibility. I learned the ins and outs of the home building process.

In what ways did Grove City College help prepare you for this internship?

Grove City taught me to work diligently and be proud of the results of hard work, a skill I practiced all summer. The college also helped me learn time management skills, which was a significant portion of my job.

Did Grove City College assist you in obtaining this internship?

Yes, I received this internship through the Grove City College Career Fair.

Upon closing out the Q&A with John, I talked to him more about what life after college looks like for him. John has received a job offer from this internship but is currently exploring his options within the finance field. In exploring his options John has been fiercely interviewing with many companies trying to find not just a job offer but a workplace which can challenge him and make a career for himself.

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Student Internship Spotlight | James Sutherland

James Sutherland is a junior Political Science major from Washington, D.C. James is a member of the Sigma Phi Omicron housing group on campus while also being the Chief Editor for the Collegian, the College’s newspaper. James received an internship in 2017 with Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is a non-profit law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases. The following is the Q&A held with James Sutherland pertaining to his internship experience. This Q&A provides some insight on an internship for a political science major.

 

Where did you intern?

Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

What was your position?

Communications Intern

Tell me a little bit about your experience? Likes/ Dislikes?

Becket was a superb internship. Very well organized, with projects for me throughout the summer. It was also a really good office environment, and a generally fun place to work. They did a good job of organizing fun events for the interns, like a tour of the Supreme Court or a visit to the office of a federal judge.

What skills did you learn?

Clear and concise writing, organization, and just how to generally work in a professional environment

In what ways did Grove City College help prepare you for this internship?

The writing and reading skills I learned were extremely helpful, as was the general understanding of the importance of faith

Did Grove City College assist you in obtaining this internship?

Career Services was very helpful, giving me rooms to interview in. The Poly Sci department also helped, with guidance and advice throughout the process

Upon closing out the Q&A, I talked to James more about his hopes for his future and potential jobs. James is graduating a semester early in the fall of 2019. He is currently exploring his options as far as jobs go and plans on beginning to study for the LSAT exam and taking the exam this summer (2019).

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ART 207 | Advanced Ceramics

Interested in taking some art electives during your time at Grove City College? If so, ART 207 might be an interesting opportunity for you. ART 207, also known as advanced ceramics, is a course for students who either have already taken a ceramics course at Grove City College or who have experience outside of the College working in the art setting with clay. Why this course requires such qualifications is due to the fact that it takes the basic concepts of both hand building and wheel throwing and elaborates and expands on technique, use of equipment, and creativity involved in each type of art production. In doing this it allows you to truly test your ceramics skills and to improve your knowledge and abilities to create different and more complex pieces of art with clay.

How this is accomplished is through the use of assignments that focus on different aspects of improvement. One example of this can be seen in the first assignment given to the wheel throwing section of the class. Students are asked to perform the basic task of producing cylinders while not focusing on the creation of the cylinder itself, but rather on the space inside the cylinder. Such an exercise takes a skill learned in Beginning Wheel Throwing (making a cylinder) and elaborates on it by providing the artist the opportunity to envision the use of the piece and its effectiveness in accomplishing its end goal of holding something. This provokes a different thought process in creating the cylinder. This assignment and various others (the hand-building and wheel throwing sections of the class receive different assignments simultaneously) provide students the ability to not just maintain and improve their ceramics skills, but to also learn new skills and thought processes when thinking of the art.

If this sounds interesting to you be sure to check out ART 207 when scheduling your next semester of classes, or during your meeting with your advisor as an incoming freshman at Grove City College!

 

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ART 103 | Beginning Hand Building

Whether your artistic abilities are horrible, great, or somewhere in between, ART 103 could be an intriguing option for you! This class is a three-credit art course at Grove City College where students are given the opportunity to work with clay to create artistic pieces.

The class covers the basics of creating art with clay and walks you through the process of making various types of pieces. As you become more and more accustomed to the machinery and processes, bigger, more specific projects will be given to you, allowing you to show both what you have learned while also providing an opportunity to express your artistic side and personalize pieces to be and look like whatever you want within the confines of the assignment. This course is a great option for people who have never worked with clay and also for people who may have years of experience working with this artistic medium because grades are given based on your progress and efforts rather than comparing one student’s piece to another student’s. While this class can be difficult for some, the professor (Kathy Rhoades) is very understanding, motivational, and caring towards her students and willing to help them in any way.

With this brief overview of ART 103,  a comparison can be made between this course and a normal elective. This course requires creativity rather than constant learning as in a normal course. This aspect is something that some people may look for as an elective during a busy or more difficult semester but could also be something that may not interest you. Another aspect to take into consideration is the course fee that comes with this and all other ceramics courses at Grove City College. The fee varies slightly each year but can be something that deters some students from this class over another. When considering this fee, though, it is important to also keep in mind that your textbooks for another elective may be more or even equal in price. In conclusion, this course is one that I love as it provided me a time to relax and use my creativeness to create art that I can look at and actually be proud of, which I cannot say I am able to do when drawing or painting, while being in an environment where I am surrounded by others creating themselves, inspiring my works, and that is led by a very encouraging and helpful professor.

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Discovering My Artistic Abilities | Ceramics

Are you one of those people who has always had a profound interest in art? The kind of intense intrigue where you look at the piece of art and cannot help but wonder what the artist was thinking or how it is even possible that the creator was able to make such a complex and beautiful work simply with paint, a brush, a canvas, and their mind? This type of curious mind was one which I possessed and which always drew me to art… no not as some artist who loved to draw and was extremely gifted, but rather a terrible artist incapable of drawing a simple shape but who was simply intrigued by the work and precision others were able to produce in their works. In having never possessed the capability to draw or paint I somewhat gave up on exploring the field of art and had just stuck to simply observing and enjoying others pieces, that is until my junior year of college when I found a form of art that I had not had the opportunity to experiment with earlier in life. This new medium for art supplied me with the opportunity to use the strength of my hands and machines to create my art rather than the steadiness of my hand or my ability to blend colors. This new opportunity supplied me with confidence that I could in fact contribute something artistic for once.

The medium I was introduced to in the second semester of my junior year was ceramics, more specifically wheel throwing. For those of you who do not know what wheel throwing is, it is a form of art in which one uses clay, a spinning wheel, and various other tools to create pottery. Being that a wheel is used this allows symmetry in these art pieces to be acquired quite easily and allows for enhanced focus on other areas of the art form. As noted above, this form of art allowed me to avoid my shortcomings and inability to be steady, blend, and draw and allowed me to focus on new skills and techniques. In one semester of work I had fallen in love with this form of art as it supplied me the ability to contribute and inspire others as I had been my whole life.

After the close of the semester my interest only grew greater for this field of art which drove me to pursue more classes and more opportunities to work with this artistic medium known as clay. I am now in the second semester of my senior year and before graduation have made space for a few elective credit hours which have allowed me to add two more ceramics classes to my college transcript and which allow me the opportunity to both work with clay in a different manner and to hone in my wheel throwing skills one final time. The two ceramics courses I am currently taking are beginning hand building where I will be able to use different equipment to make more intricate and varying shaped pieces and advanced ceramics where I will be able to keep improving my wheel throwing abilities and creating new more complicated pieces.

With my story I hope that this encourages you to pursue your interests in college, whether these interests are something you already enjoy or something you did not know existed. Explore the various opportunities of your college or university and use your elective hours to learn about things that interest you, you never know what you might learn or what you might grow to love.

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Tri- RHO Extravaganza | What It Is and Its Significance to My College Career and Life

Fill in the blank: There is never a dull moment at __________________________. If you said Grove City College you are correct! Grove City College, its various departments and organizations, sports teams, and on-campus groups all take part in maintaining a consistently entertaining campus life. With events, dances, meetings, games, and loads more forms of entertainment on campus there is rarely a weekend where there is nothing to do.

One of the events in specific which takes place every spring semester is the Tri-RHO Extravaganza. This event is put on by the Tri-RHO housing group, which is one of the College’s nine men’s housing groups, and is open to all of campus. The tri-RHO Extravaganza is a dance which takes places in the Hicks Dinning Hall. The Extravaganza is always a very popular event on campus and draws large crowds as it is usually the first dance of the spring semester and due also to the high quality of the event. Aside from dancing, there are an assortment of appetizers and drinks. The music at the dance, although the dress is formal, is usually the average dance songs mixed in with modern hits creating a great atmosphere for having fun with friends and boogying down. One other key attraction this event has is the signature photo booth where guests can get their picture taken in front of the tri-RHO banner. As can be seen, this event is a great time on campus and supplies students the opportunity to take a break from studies and homework and to just have a little fun.

This event has always been one of my favorites at Grove City College and has made for a lot of great memories. One specific memory that I attach to this event and that will forever be a part of my life is my first experience attending this dance. This is because this dance happened to be the first time I ever hung out with and the first time I ever attended a dance with my current fiancé. To give some backstory, at the time of this dance my freshman year I was texting back and forth with a girl I knew from back home. In our texting I casually invited her to this dance expecting her to give me an excuse to why she could not come but instead, being the spontaneous woman she is, she answered my questions with an unexpected, “Yes.” The day of the event arrived and I picked her up from her car and we went to the dance. Long story short, we had a great time dancing around at the event and with my friends. It is because of this night that my relationship with this, at the time, stranger begin to flourish and that this event and the night of February 5, 2016 will forever be an important and an amazing date in my life.

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ACCT 410 | Contemp. Accounting Theory/Practice

While the names of some college courses seem quite up-front and self-explanatory (i.e. foundations of sociology, principles of accounting, etc…) some courses are quite the opposite. This means you look at the course code, read the name aloud, and you’re still unable to even draw an intellectual guess at what the class could cover or what the purpose of the course could be. ACCT 410 was one of those courses for me. It took me until my junior year to figure out what the class even was, and my senior year to find out the importance of this course to me. In order to help inform you about this very valuable accounting course that Grove City College offers, and to prevent you from suffering the same confusion I encountered, I have written this for you, the reader, the future Grover, the future certified public accountant.

As you may have heard, the CPA certification is a great certification for anyone going into the field of accounting, whether you are planning to go into public accounting or not. This being said, would it not be nice to have the opportunity to take a class specifically created to assist you in studying for the CPA exam? That is exactly what ACCT 410 does. It was created to help students work through the material covered on the Financial Accounting & Reporting (FAR) section of the exam. It allows students the opportunity to work with CPA review software that covers topics found on the actual CPA exam and in a format similar to that of the exam. The significance of this course is not only found in the value provided by the course material and the topics covered, but also in the ability of the course to assist students in getting over the biggest hurdle in studying for the CPA exam – simply starting to study because students get the opportunity to slowly get used to the format and process of preparing for the CPA exam.

While this may not seem extremely significant to you, take it from a senior who will be sitting for this challenging exam in the upcoming months, this class is a blessing in disguise. Yes, a course like this is intimidating to think about and sign up for, but once you immerse yourself in the CPA review software and material, and begin to study, this will help you greatly in the following months and years as you continue your studies and one day obtain your CPA certification.

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Audit Internship Tips III: Three tips to Help You Succeed!

“An auditor’s job is to perform tests of a company’s financial statements and perform other various assurance acts to provide their clients and their client’s stakeholder’s confidence in the preparation of financial statements and confidence in the processes in place at a client’s location. ”

In having performed an audit internship, I would like to believe that I worded this brief description of an auditor’s duties in a way that not everyone would understand, and if you are one of those who does not understand, there is no need to fret. It will come to you. The vocabulary I used, which is hopefully what made my description harder to understand (if it was the way I write what do you expect? I am an accounting major, not an English major), leads to my first audit tip. When you arrive on the first day of your internship, take notes on the vocabulary and acronyms commonly used at the firm. In taking notes, it will provide you more confidence and make you more comfortable in day to day conversations with fellow employees of the firm and their clients. Also, by making it a point to learn this vocabulary and lingo, it will better prepare you to be successful in your internship and in your career as an auditor. One final note in applying this strategy of close observation and use of audit vocabulary is do not be afraid to ask what something means. Most firms love when incoming staff and interns ask questions, so stand out of the crowd and ask!

My second, and equally crucial tip is to refresh your Microsoft Excel, Word, and PDF skills. This is crucial because most firms’ software simply uses these applications for documentation for their work papers. So, by keeping up to date with your knowledge of these applications and by continuously learning new formulas and ways to do tasks in these types of applications, your efficiency on the job will be increased and will surely impress your employer. Even if you refresh your skills and it turns out your firms’ software does not use these applications, these are applications that you will commonly use for tasks outside of the audit, so comprehending how to perform tasks quickly via these applications will make you more efficient and more effective in work and in life.

My third tip for a soon to be (or not soon to be) audit intern would be to not fall into the common college student mindset and think that what you learned in your first two to four years of college was a waste just because a lot of the skills used by an auditor on a daily basis do not seem to implement much of what you learned. When you find yourself in conversation with fellow engagement team members, this knowledge learned throughout your time in college should provide you insight on what is the correct way to account for a specific situation or what a general journal entry to record depreciation should look like. Although you may find yourself during the internship questioning what you learned throughout your time in college and its application to this potential job opportunity you are/will be working at, there will be glimpses of times where you find yourself in a discussion being able to contribute something to the conversation or being able to have some insight on the topic to help the team understand some entry or to catch a potential issue. It is these small things that can generally make or break an engagement and if you keep in mind what you have learned over the past few years, this will contribute to your success as an auditor.

These are three of my main tips I would give to anyone pursuing an internship in the field of audit. With this being said, there are many more resources out there for current and future auditors. So do not be afraid to search the web or even look into and keep up with the current Accounting Standard Updates (ASU). Also, if you are interested in reading about more tips in audit or college or any topic let us know! Feel free to comment on this blog or to contact the blog via the contact tab with your own questions. We would love to help!

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Audit Internship Tips II: You Are Not Alone

So, you just read a whole blog post and you have not learned anything? You are right where you were before the start of the blog and are still (A) confused what audit is and reading this for future reference or (B) waiting for some tips for that internship you start next month.

No matter which group you may fall into, you are probably a bit confused and slightly annoyed, but this is normal. This is all part of the process of being an audit intern. You start unsure, then get stressed with all of the pressure of interviews and networking, then you finally get an offer and you become dazed and confused about what you just got yourself into. That is what I am here for, though. In providing tips, I hope to not just give you the general speech telling you that there is no way to prepare for it (that I noted in the previous blog). Instead, I hope to supply you with some useful advice and necessary skills, which will supply you the opportunity to be successful in this internship you will receive (or have already received).

So, let us finally get started. You have this internship and you want to be prepared and ready to take it on and provide the employer your best effort, but how do you do that and what is audit? For those of you who do not know what audit is, the best place to start this journey is to first describe and discuss what an auditor does. An auditor’s job is to perform tests of a company’s financial statements and perform other various assurance acts to provide their clients and their client’s stakeholder’s confidence in the preparation of financial statements and confidence in the processes in place at a client’s location. It is with this definition that we can move on into the final blog of the series and really dig into both what this career path known as audit is and FINALLY hear the precious tips you have been waiting quite patiently for.

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Audit Internship Tips I: An Introduction to The Process

Are you an incoming freshman planning on majoring in accounting or a college student looking for an accounting internship? If so, you may find this blog a bit helpful and encouraging.

At some point over the next couple of years, when you decide to start looking for an internship (or if you already started looking), you are bound to come across a lot of audit internship opportunities. The reasoning for this is twofold. First, audit internships are usually the main internship opportunity that public accounting firms offer during the summer due to their year-round need. Secondly, because early in the school year (September/August and around the time of the Career Fair), is when the Big Four accounting firms (EY, Deloitte, PwC and KPMG) start hiring, this is also when regional firms begin looking. With this abundance of opportunities and the encouragement of your colleagues and friends, you will then (if you have not already started) go out and apply at these firms. In applying, your goal is to get an interview. In doing so, you will go through your first, second, and, yes, even third round of interviews at these various firms. Then, if you are one of the lucky ones, get an offer.

So, now that you have this offer (or offers), you will more likely than not find yourself in the place I once was a short six months ago. You have an internship at a public accounting firm in audit, but if you were asked to tell someone what an audit was you would not even know where to start. Even with your lack of knowledge of the field you accepted the offer anyway and act confident and cool, when deep inside you are having a mini-heart attack because you are not sure what auditing even is and everyone you talk to who has had an internship in audit before just tells you that, “Audit is different. Class can’t really prepare you for what you will be doing on a daily basis as an auditor,” which, if I’m being honest, is true to some extent but this is where I come in…