Over the next three to five years, my intention is to build up a number of skills, competencies and acquire the knowledge that I will need to set myself up to achieve my long-range vision for myself. That long-range vision is to build an accounting consultancy firm that can help businesses to deal with the challenges associated with doing business in different legal, political, ethical and social environments. This marriage of functional (accounting) with some of the softer skills associated with international business is a compelling proposition. In an era where many skills and talents are being automated – and where artificial intelligence is going to automate many more – I envision the most successful people being the ones who are able to do multiple things. Where an AI can perform a purely functional task, like basic accounting, an AI will not be able to perform tasks as complex and nuanced as blending a variety of hard and soft skills together. Not for a while yet anyway. I see my business vision as being something that I can sustain as a career throughout the coming technological transformation. The skills that I acquire today will directly help me get to the point where I can start my consultancy. Over the next few years, I wish to obtain my degree of accounting, and acquire along with that education a CPA designation, and some of the different soft skills that are required to thrive in the international business environment. The Business Administration Accounting program offers me the opportunity to acquire precisely the skills that I believe I will need in order to navigate the complex and rapidly changing environment. Accounting is a resilient functional skill that lies at the core of every business, while the softer skills will allow me to build up my flexibility and adaptability, which are also two of the traits that I will be able to offer my clients when I eventually can start my own firm.

Before I get to that point, however, I will need to complete my degree, and obtain my CPA. The next step after that point will be to go to work for a Japanese accounting firm. In that position, I will be able to build the relationships that I will need to help carry me through the early parts of my career, as well as put myself in a position where I will be constantly building up my competencies. Specifically, I want to build on the education that I intend to obtain in strategic planning and strategic management. Strategy is an area that requires not only vision, but the ability to execute on that vision, thus a variety of soft and hard skills. If I can get to the point where I understand the strategic needs of businesses in uncertain international environments, then I will be able to strike out on my own. The next 5 years will put me on that path, if I can acquire the knowledge and competencies that I intend to.

Reflection on Current Semester

My current semester has been fun. I achieved my goals, through hard work, but I had a learn a lot along the way. The first thing was time management. It's not easy in the sense that I work part time, and my family is in Japan, which makes communications a little bit more complicated. You think that there is lots of time, but then you realize that you do not always have a lot of energy, especially after work. That is not just automatically time you can expect to be productive at school. So finding the times that work best to handle the course load was essential to my success this past semester.

It can be a lot of work, so one of the most important aspects of time management is really to accurately assess how much work it takes to get things done. Some things take a longer time than you expect, and you have to leave room for that. You also have to accommodate that there are many different assignments in different courses. Sometimes they can come all at the same time, or right around exams. Learning how to juggle, and plan my work, are two essential skills. Thankfully, I feel that I was a quick learner on those things, and therefore was able to have more of a fun semester, where I was prepared with the hard work,...

That I was successful shows me that I approached the semester the right way. I learned quickly how to be realistic about how much time I needed for things, to get all my work done, and I made adjustments. I see that when there are problems, that is an opportunity for improvement, and I make a point to make the improvement.
There have been sacrifices in terms of not being with my family. I feel that this experience is perfect for me, but that does not mean it is always easy. With so many friends and family in Japan, and me not being there, that is really one sacrifice that I am making. I cannot say that I regret making that sacrifice, but I can say with certainty that it's challenging, and continues to be to this day. It will be worth it, and because I have this great vision for the future that vision allows for me to focus on the positive and not become distracted by the sacrifices.

Top Obstacles

Knowing that I have made sacrifices to get here, and that there are definitely some challenges with respect to juggling all of the different things in my life, I will continue to adopt strategies that help me manage.

One of the biggest ones is with ensuring that my study time is used most productively. My basic strategy has always been to set aside study time, but that has proven to be less effective in recent months because the times that I would set aside were not necessarily optimal. So for example, I would say that I would study when I get home from work on a Friday, but that is after working all day and I would find myself too tired to properly study. That ultimately proved to be a challenge for me. In that sense, I feel that the best thing for me has been something I have been doing recently. Recently, I have begun writing down my study sessions, trying different times. Then I figure out when my best times are. I study best first thing in the morning. This makes sense, but in the past I would do other things like run errands or exercise. Those are productive things to do, but they are also things that present specific challenges because they do not require my brain to be at its best. But if I study at the morning times and move these tasks to other times, then that makes more sense, because my studying is more efficient. I concentrate better, and learn more,

I have also adopted things like Pomodoro to help make sure that I do not get distracted. That used to be a big problem for me when trying to study – it was pretty easy to just start surfing around or get distracted in other ways. To teach myself to be more disciplined, I started using that app to break up my study sessions. It gave me the time I needed to refresh my brain, but also to focus and not allow myself to be distracted until it was time to do so. Self-discipline is really what it comes down to in terms of being able to manage the different claims on my time and mental energy.

How do you plan to make use of student facilities?

I think the Pollak Library has to be the number one resource I will use. I will need to quiet space in which to get work done, and sometimes that is not available where I live. So it important to have another space, and the library will provide that. Furthermore, the library will be a good resource for educational material – books on management for example, and access to the journal articles that I will need to write my papers.

What will Graduating Mean to you Professionally and Personally

Professionally, graduating is obviously a good thing. It will put me in a position to move into the career portion of my plan. I can start down the path of obtaining my CPA when I graduate, so in that sense graduating does not mean the end of my education but rather the beginning of the next phase of my education. But this is a professional education, one needed to start my career in earnest. I will be able to begin working full-time in accounting when I graduate. It means being able to take the…