I might never have become interested in Accounting if I didn’t have a love for Math and numbers. When my family was still living in Vietnam, they operated a coffee business and I was the obvious choice to manage accounting tasks. I would help them with various financial aspects of the business including bookkeeping, budgeting, and cost control. It were these experiences that helped me realize an accounting career will be the best fit to my skills, strengths, and interests. I am also suited to a career in accounting because in addition to being comfortable with the numbers, I also have strong analytical and critical thinking skills.
I have completed my Associate’s degree in Business at Tacoma Community College (TCC) to build a strong foundation for an academic career at University of Washington, Tacoma (UWT). In addition to being a student at TCC, I continued to hone my accounting skills by helping my family members file their annual income taxes as well as guiding relatives who operate a beauty salon. I am currently advising them how they can expand their beauty salon business by both becoming more cost-efficient as well as obtaining small business loans that will easily pay themselves off in the short term. I only helped my family and relatives out of courtesy but it turned out no one benefitted from the whole process as much as me. Applying accounting principles in real world has helped me appreciate the discipline even more and has even inspired me to persuade several aunts to adopt financial discipline in their daily lives.

I regularly follow business and economic news and the financial scandals over the last decade have only increased the importance of accounting profession. The scandals remind us that there is a need to better educate the public about accounting concepts and in addition, there is lack of skilled accounting analysts who can detect accounting improprieties in a timely fashion and help restore public confidence in the financial system. Accounting is a language to communicate the economic status of an organization to the stakeholders, thus, accounting profession has a huge responsibility to ensure that companies apply accounting principles to present as accurate picture of their financial health and economic events as possible.

It is not only important to choose a major which is a great fit to one’s strengths and interests but also choose the right place to acquire learning. After doing extensive research, I have come to the conclusion that UWT is the ideal place to resume my academic career. Not only the Milgard School of Business has world-class faculty but I will also have tremendous opportunities to learning resources outside classrooms as well as access to the business school’s strong professional network. In addition, the accounting department is known to provide many opportunities to students to interact with leading accounting professionals in the industry.

During my campus visit, I met many students who are pursuing their accounting degree at Milgard and they had nothing but amazing stories. I also noticed that the students come from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds which will also significantly enhance my overall learning experience. I have been so impressed with the academic and campus life at Milgard and UWT in general that I also see myself pursuing graduate business degree at the school in the near future.