Bachelor of Business (Honours) in Accounting

Hi my name is Gianna and I did the honours program here at UTS about six or seven years ago. I think one of the biggest things that I learned and something that has really helped me as I’ve gone into the workplace is just the ability to be able to think really fast on my feet and you know formulate and articulate intelligent answers very quickly and at pace. You know in honours the honours program is very challenging so and you're kind of in a room with kind of a bunch of intelligent people and you're all there kind of bouncing off each other and challenging each other and being able to take that skill into the workplace has really really helped me.

So my name is Shetty Khalifa, since completing the honours program I joined KPMG in a graduate role. After KPMG I joined Pillai Administration, they are one of the largest superannuation administrators in Australia and I work with them as a manager and enterprise risk management practice and internal audit. A big part of my role today is to inform decision making by using data and being able to analyse it and I believe that I am able to do so because of the honours program it has given me a lot of skills to being able to interpret the data and to critically think about what the data means and how we can provide recommendation and advice to our clients and to managers across the organization to be able to inform decision making.

Hi my name's Steff I graduated from honours and accounting in 2013 I'm currently working at KPMG in the RISC consulting division of the advisory practice. I think that honours helped me to get my job at KPMG in risk consulting particularly because it helped me to stand up amongst my peers. It looks really good to have an honours degree and in particular to have a first class on it. I also think that honours has really allowed me to end up in a consulting job compared to the typical audit or business services jobs that a lot of accounting graduates go into, particularly given that a lot of my colleagues either have double degrees or come from multidisciplinary background such as engineering or you know other arts and cultural studies so they really look for people that seek out challenges and come from different backgrounds and have really shown that they can think in a different way. I also think that honours has given me the opportunity to have a different career paths in the future, so having an honours degree opens doors to a PhD later down the track and also opens doors to teaching at University so that gives me more options later on.

Hi my name is Wassila and I graduated from the first class honours in 2013 at UTS. I'm currently working for Unilever as a finance future Leaders graduate on the program. I honestly feel I wouldn't have got the job that I have today if it wasn't for the Honours Program. So having a first class honours really helps set me apart from all the other applicants I feel not just in terms of having the title but also the skills that I got out of the program so for example regular business students don't usually have the same leadership or data analysis opportunities which we get in honours through teaching and also doing your research on your thesis. So these really made a difference during the assessment lack of process for when you apply for a graduate position, in particular in the assessment centre because I was able to process the information a lot quicker during the case studies and also when you present to a director or a manager you're all more confident in your presentation skills whereas I don't think I would have had the same level of confidence or professionalism that I did after I completed the honours degree.

So honours has been really great in preparing me to be successful in my career as a management consultant. I’ve learned some really valuable skills way beyond what I learned to my undergrad. I’ve had the opportunity to push myself intellectually and I’ve had the chance to meet and learn from some exceptional people who've continued to help me way beyond graduation. It was a tough decision to forego a year of work in order to pursue another year of studies but it's been an investment in myself which has really paid off and one that I’m very glad that I made.

The accounting honours program helped me in two key ways in progressing my career. One was having the qualification which actually allowed me to get in the door, part of my job now we do a lot of CV screening and seeing honours really differentiates you from other people and other candidates that are in the list. The second one is more what I learned through the program and for me the program first and foremost taught me how to think in a way that I didn't quite get from my undergraduate. It was a developing the critical and analytical thinking developing the research skills the writing skills but also to question and to think creatively not every answer you see on paper is the right answer for you or for your client and it's you know working through that in a manner that allows you to consider what the actual problem is they're solving for and sort of move forward on that basis trying to get the best outcome for someone. The other things that have helped me along the way have been you know the academics and the researchers that you meet and I’ve still got a really close relationship with my supervisor who has been a good sounding board for me over the last four years both in personal and professional sense.