The Keiter Internship Experience – One Month In

This article was written and published by Courtney Streeby, a 2021 summer intern at Keiter. View the original article here.

Overview of the Keiter Audit and Tax Internship

There are a few questions that accounting majors always ask. Is an internship worth it? What is an internship like? Which company is the best to work for? What area of accounting should I got in to? Lucky for you all, I am here to answer these questions for you. As a senior accounting major currently going through her internship, I feel I have some valuable knowledge you all could use. First, I’ll give you some background information. Then, I will address each question directly.

Radford University

I am currently a rising senior at Radford University. I am majoring in accounting with a minor in criminal justice. I am in the honors college and I am currently working on my honors capstone.

Keiter CPA Summer Internship

About a month ago, I began my first internship at Keiter CPAs. It’s a hybrid internship with half of your time being spent in the Tax department and the other half being spent in the Auditing department. So, far I have run into a few obstacles, but nothing I couldn’t overcome. After a long, but very necessary, orientation week, I finally got to start working in the Auditing department. I decided to work virtual for the internship to save money, but this did come with a few obstacles. I live in the middle of nowhere, so my internet would be a little slow at times. Actually, about 3 days into my internship my internet went out completely for about 9 hours.

However, so far I have learned a great deal and it’s been an amazing experience. I’ll tell you all about these wonderful experiences as I am answering the questions.

Is an Internship worth it?

I would say 100% definitely. There is no better way to decide what field you want to go into or if you will even like the job than to do an internship. You gain real world experience that you cannot get out of a classroom. I have had the ability to work on some amazing companies in the auditing department. I have gained some amazing skills that I can put on my resume and use in my future career. You also have the opportunity to connect with other interns and employees that can be valuable assets to your future. I have met so many amazing people during my time here at Keiter. Everyone is always willing to help you because they know the struggle of the first few weeks of working the field. You also get to work along side many amazing interns sometimes. The interns I work with are incredibly nice and I can definitely see some of them becoming life-long friends. You also have the opportunity to check the company out and see what working for them is like. You can speak to other employees about their experiences as well.

What is an Internship like?

This question is answered some by the previous question. I’ll just go a little more in detail about what my experiences are like here. At Keiter CPAs, we had a week long orientation at the beginning of our internship. While it was a bit long, we learned some valuable knowledge that we will not only use throughout the internship, but also throughout our career. However, it wasn’t just meeting after meeting. We did some fun things as an intern group such as a lunch activity where we played games and just chatted and got to know each other.

My first week in the auditing department was a little stressful. My internet went out for almost a whole day. However, the people I was working on the audit with were completely understanding. They gave me quite a bit of work to do. I ended up completing it all and they assigned me more. I also spoke with my performance coach, who is absolutely amazing. You can tell he is incredibly experienced. The purpose of my performance coach is to help me get the most out of my internship by setting goals and sticking to them. I am also interested in going into forensic accounting; and he was able to connect me with someone from their forensic accounting department. I also learned that someone from my hometown actually works here! I live in a pretty small and far away place so it was kind of shocking and cool to meet someone else from there!

I am half way through my second week and it’s going amazing so far. I haven’t had any internet issues (yet). I’ve also got to do some new things that I didn’t get to do last week. I’ve also participated in a tax and auditing staff meeting. It was great getting to see what those are like and all about! I was also able to meet with the person that I learned was from my hometown. It was great to be able to connect with him and learn about his experiences.

All in all, it’s full of connecting with people and gaining experience. It’s not stressful and more of a learning experience. You aren’t super pressured to get work done within unrealistic time limits or do everything perfectly on the first try. Everyone is willing to help and guide you along the way. After all, they have been in your shoes and they know what it’s like.

Which is the best company to work for?

I don’t really think that one company is better to work for than another in general. It all depends on your personal likes and needs. A big company is not for everyone and a small company is not for everyone. Personally, I wanted to work in a medium to large sized company. I believe this is why I have loved working for Keiter so much. It’s large enough to be known, but small enough to know everyone working there. It has this family vibe to it that I absolutely love. So definitely just look into different companies and Intern at different places. This will help you decide what company is right for you and best for you to work for!

What area of accounting should I go into?

This also depends on what you enjoy and want. Personally, I enjoy the investigative and testing side of accounting. This is why I found that auditing and forensic accounting was perfect for me. I definitely recommend doing internships at different places to get a feel of what field may be interesting to you. Also, pay a lot of attention in your classes, This will also be a huge deciding factor in what you enjoy the most.

All in all, an internship is an amazing way to step into your career. If you haven’t already, look into different internships as early as your sophomore year. The more you participate in, the better off you will be! I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Keiter so far. I will definitely be trying to do some more internships here in the future and looking at it as a future place of employment.

Interested in learning more about an internship or career at Keiter? Contact us. We would love to talk with you.