Room 224

School of Business Administration facilitates on-campus internship

Interning is a confusing time period. As a student, you are hanging in the limbo between employment and scholastics, balancing classes with a new job and trying to ignore the fact that paying for internship credits appears to be the proverbial “one step forward, two steps back.” However, a recent development at the Andrews University School of Business Administration (SBA) is changing the internship game by placing a paid, unaffiliated accounting internship right in Chan Shun Hall.

Since December, the accounting firm Crowe and Horwath has operated the paid, three-month internship out of Room 224.

“We came up with this idea last fall,” states CPA advisor and Andrews alumnus Paul Smith. “My colleague who runs the group I’m in came up with the idea and we started reaching out to different universities last fall. Andrews agreed to give us some space, and here we are.”

In the span of four months, the accounting internship had been established, with students working on campus instead of from Crowe’s South Bend office nearly 30 miles away.

“Obviously, Crowe is happy to be on campus and get the publicity of offering internships for recruiting purposes,” adds Smith, “but it’s a win for the students as well. Instead of having to commute into the office every day, basically they can walk across the room, go to class, and then come back and keep working.”

Not only is the development of an on-campus, unaffiliated internship convenient, it also more closely resembles an accounting job in the digital age. According to Smith, Crowe has implemented a new mobility strategy, which allows employees to do work from their own locations and set up their client meeting locations in areas where office space would be at a premium. Students in Room 224 work on lower-risk accounting assignments for clients, while supervisors work alongside to assist if needed.

Along with setting up the on-campus office, Smith also negotiated a $10,000 donation to the School of Business Administration for the privilege of on-site connections.

“I wanted Crowe to make a donation and essentially pay for this privilege, because it’s putting us in a very good position in terms of recruiting students,” he explains. “I’m kind of first in line now, and I think that just being in that position Crowe needs to acknowledge the benefit they are being given, and we are in the SBA’s space, so we should be paying rent.”

Surprisingly, even inter-company networking hasn’t been hindered by the 28-mile separation from the South Bend office.

“I wouldn’t say we lost a lot of communication compared to when we were at Crowe, since everyone at Crowe instant messages each other anyway,” reflects accounting graduate Abigail Tejeda. “I almost talk to them more now that I am away.”

Melissa Ruhupatty, an international business major with a minor in accounting, expressed similar sentiments. “I like it better,” she admits. “At the office it’s so quiet all the time and everyone is in their cubicles. Here it’s less scary, more communal, and even though we are working here, we’re still talking to people outside. We still talk to field team people, which are Crowe employees out at the companies we are auditing, and we still talk to some of our supervisors back in the office in South Bend.”

“One of the things I really enjoy about this internship is that I am able to do it during school,” adds Josh Stahl, an accounting and communication management major. “A lot of the focus in this internship is just building your experience and exposure to different processes you would encounter when working for a public accounting firm. It’s experiencing a typical day at work. I really enjoy it because it’s allowed me to get a lot of experience even when I’m in college. It’s something I can do during the school year instead of putting everything on pause until summer.”

In regards to the future of the program, Ralph Trecartin, dean of the SBA, spoke positively and hoped that similar opportunities would develop in other fields of business.

“Our job is to educate well, but also prepare students for the job market,” he says. “The wave right now is to have a lot more internship and experiential learning mixed in with academic learning. This is where we need to move—for all of our students, not just two or three. It’s a little piece of something that needs to happen, and it’s a pretty big deal for these students.”

Related Links

• School of Business Administration
• About Crowe Horwath
• Service, Not Self: New SBA dean has passion for others-focused leadership
• School of Business Administration Earns Accreditation