Shelby Pake, BS’19, MSA’21, is about to begin a new job at a new company in the private sector. It’s her first move outside of public accounting since graduating with the Master of Science in Accounting degree at the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis, and she’s excited for her next step.
After earning a Kelley Undergraduate degree in accounting, Shelby pursued the MSA degree to meet the 150 credits to sit for the CPA exam while also earning a deeper understanding of the field. Her training at Kelley is still serving her today.
“The MSA Program really sets you up to have experience in all aspects of accounting. I completed both my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Kelley Indianapolis, and I am very thankful that I did because there’s so much crossover in this work,” Shelby said. “Some of the finance courses that I took really prepared me for the business environment. And learning the advanced tax concepts in the graduate program not only helped me prepare for that section of the CPA exam but also prepared me for my everyday job.”
Earning a master’s degree in accounting is particularly useful for long-term career advancement. It’s also advantageous for professionals who want to move out of public accounting, as Shelby did, and into the private sector.
Shelby recently accepted a position as an in-house tax senior at TRIMEDX, a clinical asset management company in Indianapolis. After gaining some experience in a Big 4 accounting firm, she’s decided to focus her time on working internally for one company instead of serving many. She says the higher-level accounting training she gained at the Kelley School gave her a head start on solving complex issues at work because she had exposure to a lot of different concepts.
“In public accounting, I was doing tax planning for a company reorganization. While the details about reorgs from my master’s studies is a bit fuzzy, I still remember talking about these concepts in class. The nature of tax is to eat, sleep, and breathe the IRS tax code, and knowing some of these more advanced topics before coming into the practice let me hit the ground running,” Shelby said. “I’m still learning every day, whether it’s from a manager, senior manager or partner. When I already have some working knowledge to pull from, they just help me fill in the blanks.”
Another key skill graduates gain from the MSA Program is networking with other advanced tax and accounting professionals. In fact, the Kelley School has one of the largest business school alumni in the world – about 133,000 potential connections globally. Shelby completed multiple internships during her studies and ultimately landed her first job out of college through the internship. She landed her second thanks to connections she made at the Kelley School.
“I found my most recent job at EY because of a classmate I met at Kelley Indianapolis, Madelyn Heron. She had reached out to me over LinkedIn to share a job opportunity,” Shelby said. “It had always been a goal of mine to go Big 4 after college, but I graduated during the pandemic and recruiting was challenging. I was patient, and the opportunity finally came to go Big 4 because of the connections I had made at Kelley Indianapolis.”
Shelby says the path she took to get where she is today was largely influenced by her experience in the Graduate Accounting Program. It’s a degree path she’d recommend to other accounting students, especially if they can take advantage of the +1MSA option to smoothly transition from undergraduate to graduate degree with just one extra year of studies.
If she had to do it all over again, Shelby would recommend that students study for the CPA exam while they still have the professors and resources of the Kelley School at their disposal. There are two “busy seasons” in tax and being able to study for the exam while in school–instead of scheduling it around work–is efficient.
“I could’ve started studying for the exam sooner, and once you begin taking the sections, you’re on the clock to finish. Take advantage of that flexibility and Kelley resources, especially if you’re going from the undergraduate degree to the MSA,” Shelby said. “Really use those upper-level undergraduate courses to your advantage because they’re giving you a glimpse into what the graduate program–and the career ahead–is like.”
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