A four-member team from York took third spot in the 2011 Achieve Conference & Competition (ACC), hosted by the Ryerson University Accounting Society in Toronto.
Ten teams participated in the competition from universities across Canada. Each team was given two hours to analyze an accounting case provided to them and present a response to the panel of chartered accountant judges. The cases covered material on accounting, auditing and tax issues.
.jpg)
Right: From left, Mohammad Radmanesh, Karen Lee, York MBA student Jon French, associate director of career information at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario, Joanna Chieh Yu and Gerome Abaca
Third-year accounting students Gerome Abaca, logistic director in the YU Student Tax Association, and Karen Lee, along with fourth-year student Mohammad Radmanesh and
Joanna Chieh Yu, comprised the York team. All of them are a part of York’s School of Administrative Studies in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and plan to pursue the CA designation.
Competing in the ACC was a way for the students to engage academically outside the classroom and help further their experiential education.
Abaca, Lee and Chieh Yu first met at a competition in January and began working together, holding weekly meetings. They then met Radmanesh, who became the fourth member. The team worked hard to develop a bond that kept them in harmony from the case analysis process to the celebration, says Abaca.
The University of Waterloo took first place with Laurier University coming in second and York third. Representatives from accounting institutions in Ontario were also on hand as were guest speakers from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Wind Mobile. As well, the Governor General’s Gold Medal winner – the student with the highest standing on the Chartered Accountants of Canada’s three-day professional examination – shared insights about leadership, the industry and the journey towards the CA designation.