2024 Spring Accounting Internship Spotlight

Busy season for a 2024 spring audit intern

Each year Keiter hosts two sessions of interns. One group in the spring, during the busy season of accounting, and another session in the summer. Our paid internships create opportunities for students to apply what has been learned in the classroom to real client work. This spring, Tiandra Threat, a student leader at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and Virginia Society of CPAs (VSCPA) Keiter Scholarship recipient, shares how her experience has been so far as a 2024 Spring Intern.

About Tiandra

Tiandra, a first generation, non-traditional student, began her higher education career at Brightpoint Community College. After receiving her associate degree in business administration, she has continued her education at VCU pursing a degree in accounting. While excelling in her academics, she has also become a strong leader within her community, by helping others achieve their potential, as her mentors have done for her. Throughout her higher education, she has been a member of NABA, the National Association of Black Accountants, and currently serves as the treasurer for VCU’s chapter. She is also the current secretary of Beta Alpha Psi, an honor society for Accounting, Finance, and Information Systems students on VCU’s campus. Lastly, she is a member of the VSCPA DE&I Advisory Council, which advises the VSCPA Board of Directors and staff on programs and policies related to diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice; engage with leaders, schools and other stakeholders to increase students of color entering the CPA profession; and identify resources to educate members and their organizations on creating cultures of engagement and belonging.

Real accounting experience as an intern

After completing an externship with Keiter last Spring, Tiandra began her intern session early in January as a member of the Audit team. Much of her client work has been focused within the Real Estate and Construction industry, led by Brett Sinsabaugh, a BAAS Partner, who has been readily available to answer her and the other interns’ questions. At the time of writing, she has experienced two off-site audits. She shares that the experience, so far, has shown her that accounting is more than just audits, as there may be different processes and procedures depending on the project she works on. Already, through this experience she has been able to make the connections between the concepts she learns in her classes and how that applies to real world examples.

Seeing Keiter’s culture up close

Throughout the whole internship experience, Tiandra has spoken highly of the culture at Keiter in many aspects. The first of which was the collective desire from the audit team to keep morale high, especially during busy season. She talks about the positive impact she experiences when she sees others’ passion for the work they do for the clients. Overall, she has enjoyed the sense of family she has experienced during her time at the firm, sharing that she feels space has been created for everyone to feel comfortable and welcome to the team. Because of this she feels open to asking questions and talking to senior team members as colleagues. The opportunity for open communication helped her get insight into what to do in certain work situations, as well as receive guidance for class homework.

Conclusion

Tiandra’s internship with Keiter ends after the conclusion of busy season. At that time, she hopes to use the knowledge and experience gained from this experience to succeed in her classes and engagements. Tiandra is set to graduate in May of 2025, she is still deciding whether to continue her academics in graduate school or to join an accounting firm full time. Nonetheless, wherever her next step takes her, she hopes to use her platform and story to motivate others.

If you are interested in being a part of an upcoming internship classes find out for details about the process here.