Each year, hundreds of students start at DePaul as transfers from other institutions, and a large percentage choose accounting as their major.
The School of Accountancy & MIS helps enrich the transfer experience for students in a number of ways. From the Transfer Accounting Scholars Program—which invites a select group of high-achieving students to take a free summer course and get acquainted early with DePaul—to the Career Advising Transfer Workshop, which also occurs in the summer with the similar goal of helping students adjust early.
Why these “early” transfer programs? Because the accounting firm recruitment season begins only a few short weeks after the start of fall quarter. If students aren’t prepared (or aware), they can miss out on crucial opportunities to land internships that will aid in their future career prospects.
Senior Instructor Margaret Tower, who is also director of the Office of Student Success & Engagement in the school, started the Career Advising Transfer Workshop—formerly called Ready, Set, Transfer—almost 10 years ago.
“Some of my best students have been transfer students, but I noticed when they get here, it takes them a while to engage in career services,” she says. “I have to explain to them that you can’t study your way into a job; you have to go to events, meet the firms, interview, get an internship. Firms want to hire from their intern pool.”
All transfer students who declare accounting as a major or who transfer as undecided business majors are invited to the workshop, which includes guest speakers from the large firms so students can hear directly from employers and have the chance to network with them.
“Many of the firms want to get face time with our students and this is a great way to connect them,” says Tower. “The guest speakers are often alumni and sometimes they are even former transfer students, which is a really great full circle moment.”
From transfer student to supportive alumnus
David Selimos (BUS ’10) is one alumnus and former transfer student who continues to stay engaged with the school. “My transfer experience to DePaul was overwhelmingly positive; in no way did I ever feel like I was an outsider or that I was behind,” reflects Selimos, who was a first-generation college student and is now a senior manager at Crowe. “That’s what inspires me to come back and meet and talk to students who are in the same position I was once in.”
Selimos attends the school’s Meet the Firms career fair every year, representing Crowe, and is also part of a committee at Crowe that discusses other ways to integrate with DePaul to further engage students. More recently, he has been involved in getting a scholarship fund with the Crowe Foundation off the ground for DePaul students.
“[DePaul] is such a great local resource for talent,” he says. “Especially when it comes to transfers, they are a student body who is typically working their way through school and managing several other responsibilities, so they are candidates who in my experience tend to be a little more mature and professionally ready.”
“The way I see it,” he continues, “someone who is in an employer position should look at our search for talent the same way we look at our search for clients. We should sell ourselves to these students, not the other way around.”
Community college partnerships pave the way for future transfers
Because a large population of student transfers come from community colleges in the Chicago area, one of the school’s priorities over the last year has been to strengthen connections with those colleges, particularly with the accounting faculty there. Some of these efforts were led by the school’s community college outreach committee, which was revamped last year by Director Hui Lin.
“Maintaining relationships with faculty in those colleges is important because students often turn to their faculty for input and advice,” says Lin.
In October 2022, the school brought back their community college faculty luncheon, which had taken a pause due to the pandemic. A few students who had transferred to DePaul attended to talk about their experiences; the event was well received and Lin looks forward to keeping up the annual tradition.
Another partnership opportunity the school has been pursuing is with the College of DuPage—whose president, Brian Caputo, happens to be a DePaul accountancy alumnus.
College of DuPage is one of DePaul’s top community college feeder schools, and the university is currently working to create a pathway program for students to seamlessly transfer into DePaul in their junior year.
“College of DuPage recognizes the exceptionally high quality of DePaul’s accountancy and management information systems programs,” says Caputo. “Consequently, we have aggressively sought to develop partnerships with DePaul for the benefits of our students. We know that DePaul will prepare our students well to engage the challenges of a rapidly evolving marketplace.”
In February 2023, College of DuPage held a “DePaul Day” on their campus, hosting several DePaul departments and programs—accountancy being one—to introduce their students to DePaul. And in the spring, Lin and the school’s community college outreach team were busy visiting other campuses, such as Harper College and Harold Washington College, to share information about opportunities at DePaul, such as the Transfer Scholars Program and the Career Advising Workshop for transfers.
“Transfer students are an integral group of our student population,” says Lin. “Many students choose to begin their higher education journey at a community college due to a variety of reasons, and these students have high aspirations and career goals. They just took a different route to come to us. Once they choose DePaul as their transfer destination, our job is to make sure we get them acclimated and career ready as soon as possible so they can maximize their education here.”
In her accounting classes each fall, Tower says she begins by asking the students a question: “How many of you recently transferred to DePaul?”
Slowly, looking this way and that way at their classmates, students begin to raise their hands one by one. Soon, the transfer students see they’re not alone.
“Welcome to DePaul,” Tower tells them. “It’s not how you started but how you finish. So—finish strong.”
By Nadia Alfadel Coloma