Madelyn Plummer
Accounting – Robert Morris University
Going into college, I knew that I wanted to be an accounting major, but I never knew what direction I wanted to go with the degree – there are so many different options, private versus public, audit versus tax, etc. I knew that I wanted to do public accounting and get my CPA, but even after several internship experiences, I did not have more specific idea about my future. At my first internship, I worked with a public accountant doing payroll and bank reconciliations for mom-and-pop shops around my hometown; my second internship was in wealth management tax services; and my third was in capital assets working with purchase orders and invoicing.
None of these potential career paths really interested me, and I was feeling a bit lost with what I wanted for a career… until I came to GYF for a tax internship during busy season.
Before my GYF internship, I had a slight interest in tax from my college courses and wanted to see if I still enjoyed it in a real world work setting. This experience was a great opportunity for me to try it, and I can easily say that the internship greatly exceeded my expectations.
It is amazing how much you can learn in a little over three months and how quickly busy season flies by. I learned so much about tax preparation at my internship with GYF, from trying to figure out what the different tax forms meant to asking the knowledgeable staff any other questions that I may have had on a return. By the end of my internship I felt as though I was familiar with most of the documents that clients would send; however, there was always more to learn and a new type of document or transaction that I needed to handle.
I loved the work that I did during my internship at GYF, and it made me realize that I wanted to have a career in tax, so I decided to get a Masters in Taxation from Robert Morris University. Now that my internship is over, I will be finishing up my bachelors degree as well as starting my masters in the fall of 2017 (anticipated graduation in October 2018.)
This is why I believe that internships are so important – they help you to decide what career path to choose and what firm you can see yourself working at.
