PRACTICUM - A REVIEW
Despite the immense complications of this past academic year, I was able to complete my practicum in the Fall semester. I completed the ENES 210 course. ENES 210 is a class revolving around the entrepreneurial mindset and decision-making. In the class, we were given projects and assignments that afforded me a general understanding of starting a business, the different stages of business growth, and how to recruit and lead an effective and dedicated team of individuals to success. At the end of the semester, we were tasked to create a company along with marketing materials, a timeline of growth, plans to raise capital, and an outline of the startup analysis canvas.
WHAT HAVE I LEARNED AND HOW HAVE I GROWN?
My practicum was unlike many others, in that the knowledge I gained was directed very close to the line of work I will be doing in my professional career. As an accounting student, I will be working alongside numerous startups and businesses, helping guide them through financial decisions and tax work that otherwise seems overwhelming. I believe that the knowledge I gained of leadership and company direction from the side of the business owners will help me better understand the decisions different company leaders will make. As a leader, this will allow me to tailor my guidance towards their goals. Furthermore, I will direct CEOs through the seemingly treacherous path of raising capital, marketing, filing taxes, and understanding the entire process so they can become more autonomous as time progresses.
AN ARTIFACT OF MY GROWTH
Analysis of our final project
This google document serves as an artifact of my time spent in the practicum course. This final analytical paper is the amalgamation of all my previously gained knowledge on running and maintaining a business and what it takes to run one. I chose this specific piece because it demonstrates that although I was a part of creating the business I am critiquing, that does not mean I thought it was worthwhile or viable at all. I learned to separate bias from genuine and impactful decisions such as choosing to fund a project like the one I had helped create.
HOW WILL I CARRY THIS KNOWLEDGE FORWARD?
Moving forward, I will apply this knowledge to the consulting side of my career. Learning about the numerous forms of leadership, and then taking that knowledge and applying it to the business world, and to a subset of businesses I will be working closely with, will afford me invaluable knowledge and insight that many others may not share with me. This insight into how different leaders operate their businesses and being able to correctly identify different stages of a business' life will let me tailor my work for a client in a much more personal manner, and let me understand where the company should be moving towards in the future.
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Looking at my time left at UMD, I plan to take what I have learned from PL and carry it into my upper-level business classes and hopefully carry this knowledge forward to my peers, so they can derive the same benefits I have gotten from my time PL. Furthermore, I will use my experience to become more marketable to recruiters, offering them a look into the extensive knowledge base I accumulated about leadership, both socially and professionally. Attached below is a refreshed resume, along with some key points about my time in PL
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The rest of my career will focus on tax work. I hope to move to New York City and start a career in high-profile taxation. As for the industry I hope to work with, that remains to be seen. However, I know that the knowledge I have gained from PL will serve me well regardless of which industry I specialize in.
What I learned in PL will let me market myself both as a leader and a follower. I will demonstrate that leadership comes in many forms, some of which are very unexpected, and explain to recruiters that this knowledge will be invaluable in measuring impact on the company, and understanding what it takes to generate measurable impact.
