Saint Michael's College

Major: Accounting
Hometown: Enosburg Falls, VT

Good jobs at big firms await Samantha Kane and every one of the 15 other accounting majors in ther class at Saint Michael’s College. But to Samantha, preparation for life involves more than the challenging classes and practical on-the-job experience she has enjoyed over the past four years.

“One of Saint Michael’s greatest qualities is that you get such a broad-based education, and that makes you more marketable as a student -- you become a well-rounded person,” she said. “And it’s one of the few liberal arts colleges that has a really good business reputation too.”

“I like it when there’s a right and a wrong,” Samantha continued. “So I have the mentality suited to accounting. Numbers and math are things I really enjoy.”

As for hard work, that was just part of life for Samantha growing up on a third-generation dairy farm in Enosburg Falls near Vermont’s northern border with Canada. “I used to help my dad pay the bills, write checks or help address envelopes,” she said of her first excursions into business. Samantha did well in high school accounting courses, so it became the focus of her college search.

“It’s really a thriving and changing field right now,” she said, “so there’s a lot to learn about new developments.” Since Samantha entered college, for instance, several states have raised the bar for qualifying to take the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam, the equivalent of earning a license to practice in the field. So Samantha will enter a summer master’s program at Boston College where she can complete those requirements while employed after graduation at the Boston office of KPMG, a “Big Four” accounting firm where she was an intern last summer. The experience led to an offer for a full-time job once she completes her degree.

New Saint Michael’s accounting majors will still be able to finish CPA requirements in four years by taking summer courses, though Samantha and her classmates lacked time to plan ahead for that since changes came unexpectedly. In any case, Samantha said, she would not have missed her internships for anything. Those experiences were the ideal chance to try different accounting jobs and connect with potential employers, she said.

Last spring Samantha was a paid intern during tax season for accounting Professor Dennis Voight at his local firm. And at KPMG in the summer, her assignment was auditing, “so now I can go in two directions” she said. So far, she prefers auditing. “Tax is more of the number crunching that we associate with accounting – go in to your cubicle every day and file tax returns. Auditing is where you go to other companies, getting out of the office and meeting people,” she said, noting that the independent spirits who gravitate to tax accounting seem to enjoy a special camaraderie too.

Samantha’s high school counselors told her Saint Michael’s had one of Vermont’s best business programs, and she was sold on the campus years earlier. “I came here when I was in sixth grade as part of a program where kids visited campuses, and I loved it from then on,” she said.

Since business management and accounting courses overlap in the first two years, many students choose to double-major. Samantha said she was unusual in declaring an accounting major her freshman year. To round out her education, Samantha has enjoyed taking poetry, religion, philosophy, politics and an art class in calligraphy.

Spring is a busy time for accountants, so firms start recruiting early for jobs. Consequently, every Saint Michael’s senior had an offer by late autumn, Samantha said. She knows every one of the 15 other accounting majors in her class well. “It’s interesting – we have one male and 15 women,” she said, adding that in other years the distribution is more even. “But it really shows that women have made a huge advance in this field,” she said of the historically male-dominated profession.

Outside class, Samantha has been a peer tutor and teacher’s assistant for the Business and Accounting Department. “It’s a good way to get involved and meet some of the younger students in the program,” she said. Samantha has found time to play intramural basketball all four years with a group of her best friends, and their team has been champions for three years.

“All my professors have been extremely helpful writing letters of recommendation or anything they can do to help,” she said. And they impress her for more than their professional expertise in class. “We spent a lot of time covering the new laws that arose with the Enron/Arthur Anderson scandal fallout, examining integrity and ethics part of the profession,” she said. “The religion and philosophy requirements and the College's mission to serve the community and be a good citizen really shape you to have the right values.”