Olivia Alsept-Ellis |
During the first days of winter break, most students don’t expect to be balancing a budget or researching patent laws. But for four UP students, although finals had come and gone, the real work had just begun. The four senior accounting majors – team captain Martin McMahon, Tyler Desmarais, Ingrid Nelson and Michelle Siegal – chose to spend their break studying and preparing for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA) annual competition. Their work paid off: Out of 145 other teams from across the nation that entered the competition, they placed in the top three, were flown to Washington, D.C., and took home the $10,000 prize.
“We’re competitive as a group,” Desmarais said. “We wanted to succeed since day one. But it kept progressively becoming more and more work. By the third phase, we realized that we needed to be putting in 14 hour days.”
The team said after finals they would regularly stay up into the early hours of the morning to finish the task before them. This dedication lasted for over a week, up until they flew to Washington, D.C.
“We would hole up in Michelle (Siegal)’s house and just cry,” Desmarais, laughing.
“I’m pretty sure that I shed a tear,” Siegal said of the long hours spent crunching numbers.
The team had to manage a fictional, multi-million dollar portfolio and present their financial planning suggestions to a panel of judges.
“We had to mesh everything we’ve learned in at once and apply it,” McMahon said. “Instead of just doing taxes, we had to do a little bit of everything and so we could see how these ideas were married to each other.”
The team spent hours researching and teaching themselves the skills they needed – many of which had not been taught in class – to prepare for the 10-minute presentation and create the 15-page document and film they needed for the competition.
“We had to know economics and investments and law,” Nelson said. “The type of stuff we have exposure to, but…”
“But we weren’t experts in it,” Desmarais finished.
The team wasn’t alone, however. Their faculty advisor, accounting professor Ellen Lippman, assisted them in preparing to impress the judges.
“Dr. Lippman would stay up late too. Once, I emailed her at 4 a.m. and she was emailing me back,” Siegal said. “I think it helped that she was just as committed as we are.”
Desmarais nodded in agreement, adding, “Yeah, I don’t think that she sleeps.”
Lippman has assisted students in attending the AICPA competition for the past three years, among other regional business competitions.
“When I have a group of students who volunteer and really want to learn something, how can I not give them a lot of my time?” Lippman said. “It wasn’t just me either. They were asking others for advice.”
The Pamplin School of Business Administration’s professors and alumni supported the team by donating their time and energy, even coming in on Sundays when necessary.
“Having access to faculty and their eagerness to help was an excitement,” Nelson said. “I think it was really beneficial to us. We had pretty much any resource available to us that we could want.”
Ultimately, they said the force that kept the team in motion wasn’t the money or their personal prestige. They said they felt inspired to give back to the same community that was so willing to rally around them.
“Three of us had already accepted full time jobs and (Desmarais) was in the process. He’s accepted one now. But at the time, none of us were thinking about how this would look on our resumes,” McMahon said. “It seemed like, for us, we wanted to get the school’s name out there. We wanted to show that we have a great accounting program here.”
For the link to the Competitive Pilot Accountants' video project submission, go to:
