Life after college for Southeast alumna Sara Westrich has not been a typical desk job. After graduating in December 2003, Sara took a job with KPMG, LLP, an accounting firm in St. Louis. Sara is always on the go at KPMG. A normal day for this second-year accounting associate consists of visiting client locations and performing auditing functions. Sara also plans for the year-end audits, complete walk-through and control test work performed by her firm.
“My favorite aspect of this job is that I don’t sit behind a desk every day,” Sara said. “Instead, I have the opportunity to interact face-to-face with my clients on a daily basis. I also get to do a lot of traveling.”
Sara says her education at Southeast prepared her for a career in accounting. During summer 2003, Sara took an accounting internship with Rubin & Brown in St. Louis. She says the accounting program at Southeast gave her a tremendous understanding of the fundamentals and working with a real accounting firm before graduating prepared her for KPMG.
“Southeast offers a great accounting program that is becoming better recognized in the St. Louis area,” she said. “It helped me get my job at KPMG.”
Accounting was not the only thing that kept this Kelso, Mo., native occupied while at Southeast. Sara says she enjoyed spending time with her friends on campus and playing sand volleyball. She continues to keep up her volleyball skills through a sand volleyball league in St. Louis. If Sara is not digging her toes into the sand, she is walking the streets of foreign cities. She recently traveled to London, Paris and Rome, and Sara says she looks forward to traveling to Cancun in the future.
“It was unreal to travel to Europe and see how far back their histories go,” Sara explained. “The cities are unlike anything I’ve seen in the United States, especially with the architecture of their buildings compared to buildings here in this country.”
Sara says she will always have fond memories of Southeast. Her best advice for future Southeast students is to get an internship while attending college.
“The values of an internship experience are irreplaceable, especially when you are interviewing for a job,” she said. “Take advantage of the great opportunities like Southeast’s Interview Day, especially if you are in accounting and plan on living in the St. Louis area.”