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Welcome to In Focus I'm Dr. Kate Hetherington. If you're thinking about changing careers,
Howard Community College is a great resource. Joining me is Jennine Anderson, CPA and Partner
with UHY Mid-Atlantic, part of UHY Advisors one of the largest accounting firms in the
United States. Welcome Jennine.
Well thank you for having me.
Well we're so interested to hear your story and uh have lots of questions for you. So
let me start off by asking you about UHY and tell me what you do there?
Ok. UHY is a financial services firm, really what you think of as a public accounting firm.
We provide services, an audit, tax, and various services like that, and also consulting. I
happen to be part of the Columbia office. We have three partners there, I'm part of
the management team, and my personal specialty is audit and tax work for non-profit organizations.
Tell me how you got involved in accounting in the first place.
Well I was a career changer and I started out getting my degrees; a bachelors, masters,
and even four years in a Ph.D. program in economics. I went on and worked for General
Electric for a number of years as an economist, commuting to DC. Actually GE was getting rid
of our division and I thought I really like working with numbers and I bet there are a
lot more jobs for accountants in Columbia than economist, I don't like that commute.
So I started um looking at my- what I needed to do and I needed.. I figured I needed to
get my CPA. So I needed to find a place to get the credits I needed to get my CPA.
So you needed to find a place and that- the first place you thought of was Howard Community
College, or?
Well there were a lot of advantages to coming here; it was very affordable, the t- all of
the courses were offered so I had everything I needed to sit for the CPA exam, and it was
convenient to attend. At the time I had small children and um I needed to wait until my
husband got home from work to stay with the kids, and so it was great. I came here at
night.
Did you find students that were similar to you? Evening students, um?
Yes. I would say the majority were um, it seemed that there were more career changers
in my classes than beginning students.
Were you recruited for a position in accounting right out of HCC? or...
I took the CPA exam but at the same time my teachers at HCC had been from industry and
also from higher-- from education and I had never met anyone in public accounting and
thats the other part of.. being a.. thats the other thing that CPA's do. So I had a
friend who was always talking about, they had some tax issues, taking her things to
her accountant and I said, Could I-- Do you think your accountant would talk to me? And
it happened to be Jim Peacock who's my current partner. He told me all about public accounting
and so we parted ways at that time and I said, Well I'll let you know how I do on the CPA
exam. Couple months later, in those days it took a while to get the results, I found out
I had passed the whole thing the first time. Yay HCC! And um he said well come in for an
interview and so that was 1986.
What was your experience at Howard Community College?
At least in my own case I was a little relaxed as an undergrad and um so, I was the same
way that a lot of my classmates were. We were really driven to get the most we could out
of the education.
Well I'm sure the professor must've loved teaching that class because there's nothing
better than to have students who are really focused and uh really want to do the best
that they can. Um one of the things that we um we're always interested in is the experience
beyond the classroom. Now you were a young mother, with children, and um so for you you
were probably focusing more on what was happening in class and what was going to happen afterwards.
Correct.
Yeah.
Thats correct. I would do my homework, you know during nap times and go to class at night.
There reallyI- there wasn't much interaction on the campus and actually the campus was
much smaller, less places to interact.
Yeah. Yeah. Things certainly have changed over the years. Would you recommend Howard
Community College to folks who are maybe considering a career change?
Oh absolutely! Absolutely. I've been following um all of the things that have been going
on here; in the sciences and health and- and I just think it worked for me beautifully.
And I think its-- the way that world is now it just makes a lot of sense. So yes if I
had more children growing up now, if I were advising a young person I would say this a
really good place to consider and for all those career changers out there.. You know
if anyone wants to be a CPA please go to Howard Community College and then come see me.
Well you're a great recruiter for us! [laughs] And a great success story and uh I really
do wish you continued success. You really uh uh.. are a living uh part of our motto
that you can get there from here and you've really done well for yourself and um I'm glad
to hear HCC was a part of that so.. Thank you so much for being here today.
Thank You.
To learn more about opportunities for adult learners visit our website. If you would like
to learn more about our CPA program contact Dorothea Malloy at 443-518-4958. I'm Dr. Kate
Hetherington.
Learning at home. Learning in the classroom. Learning for success. For learning that works
for you choose Howard Community College. To find courses and programs that fit your schedule
and learning style visit hcclearningworks.com. You can get there from here.