I already wrote about the first recruiting event I’ve been to this season here. That was a “Back-to-School Kick-off” hosted by Grant Thornton.

On Wednesday I attended a meet-and-greet hosted by Reznick group, which provided more opportunity to talk with the professional staff than the Grant Thornton event did.

At the Grant Thornton event, I didn’t even see any professional staff. I’m not sure if there weren’t actually any there, or if it was just so crowded with students that they were hiding in the middle somewhere.

The Reznick Group event was also over-flowing. One of the staff told us that last year they had about 35 students show up to the same event. This year, they had over 70.

Most of the students seemed to be the usual juniors and seniors though, who aren’t looking for full-time offers yet, ie they are not people who have already been passed over by other firms. So, are people just taking recruiting more seriously, and going to every event, because picking and choosing doesn’t seem like an option in this economy?

E&Y hosted an event that same night, but at a staggered time. Apparently their event was absolutely packed too. Moral of the story: show up early to recruiting events this year if you want a chance to talk to any of the staff! (Or be prepared to be even more pushy getting into conversations than in past.)

My CPA score for the FAR section came in the mail today. I passed with a 93! I owe a huge thank you to Roger CPA Review for making studying so much fun and giving me all those great mnemonics to help me remember everything! Roger’s website boasts an impressive 86% pass rates, and they definitely made me feel like I had a good friend (who knew their stuff) helping me study for the CPA exam.

I owe a lot of thanks to my professors too, for giving me a good grounding in the topics covered on the CPA exam. It is a lot easier to re-learn CPA material when you learned it very well the first time around.

Looking forward, I need to study even harder for REG because I am less familiar with the topics covered on the Regulation section of the CPA exam. It’s been hard to study, what with school, recruiting events, and so many social events going on, but I should have a little bit of breathing time starting tomorrow.

Yesterday I went to a little “back to school kick-off” sort of social sponsored by Grant Thornton.

I was a little apprehensive about heading back into the world of trying to fight for a recruiter to talk to, but there were so many students invited that I didn’t even see any recruiters!

The gathering was actually pretty enjoyable, and ended up feeling like a real back-to-school event where we could chat more with fellow students, rather than a stressful event where you’re expected to compete to make small talk with the professionals a firm sends out.

So far, there haven’t been a ton of events going on. A few firms have sent out emails to the accounting students that look like an event invitation, but rather than actually hosting an event they “cordially invite” us to check them out at the accounting career fair that will be held on campus next month.

Hopefully they’re just saving their recruiting budget for events after they’ve been through the career fair?

Is anyone out there involved in recruiting at their firm? Do you have anything to say about whether there will be fewer recruiting events this year?

Okay, being back at school makes it hard to study for the CPA exam! I managed to get a few notecards done but I’m still on Reg-1 of the Roger CPA preparation course (that’s part one of 6 parts.)

When I do have time, I have more pressing assignments to do, and then there are a lot more social distractions than I had to deal with during the summer, when I was mostly living at home.

This week I hope to do better, but I have 2 recruiting events to go, which eats up time. Hopefully they’ll go well though! I’m excited to get to meet more people at the firms. I’d better get some of my business casual clothing ready to go!

If you missed my little post about diversity and accounting recruiting, check it out here. There are a lot of really insightful comments already, and they make very interesting reading.

Today was a good first day. I have great professors and interesting classes. It seems like the Masters of Accounting program is going to include a lot more reading and discussion than the undergraduate Accounting program.

Today I had class, went to the gym (its one of my forms of procrastination, but good for me!) and did some reading for class (there’s still some hours of reading ahead for me tomorrow.)

I tried to fit in an hour of studying for REG, but bedtime came too early, so only got in 45 minutes.

REG So Far

Right now, I have watched the Roger CPA videos for the REG-1 section (individual taxes.) That covered in about 3 hours what I spent a whole semester learning at school!

Before I watched the videos I spent some time reading over the Roger book chapter, which took awhile because it’s a long chapter.

Now I’m going back through Roger’s CPA review book and making note cards. This is VERY time consuming, but I tried to do it the week before the exam for FAR, and it was too late by then. Now when I get through all of the sections, I’ll already have made note cards to review with.

Also, I’m  not super comfortable with the topics on the Regulation section of the CPA, so some extra review before I even attempt the homework problems can only help! My CPA exam preparation strategies are always open to changes and improvements!

I have gotten a few interesting spam comments lately, all saying that accounting jobs are only open to white females under 24. At first I thought it was a real person, who was angry at accounting from some personal experience, but then I got a few more comments using the exact same wording, so it seems to be spam.

What do you think the situation is like for minorities in accounting?

I know I have very few African-American classmates, and if they have the right scores, accounting firms are eager to hire them to increase their “diversity.” On the other hand, one of these top-scoring classmates told me that when he goes to career fairs, he gets them impression that people see the color of his skin an assume he’s stupid until he waves his GPA under their nose.

Another issue seems to be higher turnover among African-American and Latino staff at accounting firms. They may be happy to hire them, but they seem to have trouble keeping them. Perhaps because the firms don’t create an environment that is comfortable for people who look different?

Also, do you think it makes a difference if you’re a man or a woman during the hiring process? One of my fellow students and I had an interesting talk one night about whether women were expected to behave differently to men during recruitment. We thought perhaps women were expected to be more bubbly and excited about everything, while men could get away with being quieter, but confident.

I don’t know if any of these thoughts are true, and I would have to do more investigation before I stand behind them. For those of you who work in accounting, or who have gone through some of the recruiting process for accounting, do you have any observations on these issues?

So, yesterday I was finally sitting down and studying for the CPA exam when my roommate called me. I was happy to hear he was on his way back to town a day early. He had been visiting his parents, who live four hours away. This was at 2 pm.

At 6 pm he wasn’t home and when I called to see how much longer he’d take I got no answer. At 7:30 pm I was a little worried, and at 3 am I called 911. Of course, they couldn’t do anything until he was missing for 24 hours.

So we finally got through to his parents at 1 pm today, 23 hours after I last talked to him. He did get in a wreck, but he is amazingly okay, considering how bad the crash was.

We are now making sure that we all know each others’ parents’ phone numbers, etc.

So, apart from missing roommates, this past week was pretty full, with finishing up at my summer job and going to graduate assistant orientation. Thursday night was the first time I’ve slept enough in 2 weeks.

Classes start Monday, and I think I’ll get into more of a groove. I had a little gap in posting because I haven’t had time to either study or post, but I should be done with days filled with driving for a little while, and will hopefully have some nights filled with sleep so I’ll be studying and posting more regularly!

I had a spot of trouble when I went to start watching my REG videos today. I just bought myself a Lenovo S10-2 for the new semester (since my old laptop has been having issues). However, I didn’t have Flash installed yet, and I kept trying to re-load the Roger CPA review video without realizing the problem.

Finally, I figured it out and installed Flash, but by then I  had used up my views. Luckily it was a quick fix. I used the live chat support option that the Roger CPA Review website offers, and they reset my views quite quickly. I had never used the live chat option before, but I am going to look into it more to see how else I can use it from now on.

In the meantime I started reading the chapter that goes along with the first videos, and I realized that I meant to study this way all along (read first, then watch, then re-read.) So it all worked out well!

I spent my first hour of studying for REG reading about individual taxation, which I think is the only part of REG I learned in school. It is just as convoluted as I remember! I’m confident it’ll make more sense the second time around though, especially since I have had a lot more contact with preparing tax returns than I had when I took tax class!

Ok, so maybe I won’t start studying for REG tonight. I could fit in an hour of video now, but I’m tired, and no point having too little sleep just 2 weeks before classes begin and I forget what sleep is for a semester!

I have plenty of time to fit studying in earlier in the day, I just have to avoid distractions, like long conversations with the neighbors or watching Jeopardy!

Now that I have FAR behind me (well, for now) I’m hoping I can use my study experiences to study better for REG.

I want to get through all of the Roger CPA Review videos and the other steps Roger suggests for CPA review prep and still have a few weeks to spare before the exam. I didn’t feel like I had enough time to go back and review all of the topics I wanted to review before I took FAR.

I also am going to try making notecards as I go through the process, rather than at the end. On the other hand, the actual process of making notecards is a good way to study for me, so it was a nice review to sit and make them. I’ll get that second review in the middle of the process this time around, but I’ll have the notecards ready to look through when I get closer to test time.

Other than thinking of ways to study better, I’m trying not to think about FAR for now. I’ve taken it, hopefully passed it, but I won’t find out for some unspecified amount of time. I might have to re-take it, but no point in worrying about that until I get my score!

Tomorrow, I will begin studying for the Regulation section of the CPA exam. I will still be using Roger CPA for my study materials, as I thought they worked really well for me on FAR review.

I spent the last weekend around my university, moving into my new apartment, and helping with the International Student Orientation. I’m back at home now, with fewer distractions and more constant internet and computer access, so let the CPA preparation begin!