Graduate Interview
PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata LLC
Ta Thi Khanh Hoa（Graduated from the School of Commerce in 2017）
I helped make an event about Vietnam happen
I studied Japanese at high school in Vietnam, and after graduating, used a company scholarship to study at Waseda, a place I’d long admired. I first heard about the ICC (Intercultural Communication Center) in the orientation on my first day on campus. Attracted by the fact that I would get to meet and interact with Japanese students and international students from many different countries, I participated in a variety of their cultural exchange events from my first year onward. Over time, I came to want to be one of the people offering these fun events, so I joined the ICC Student Staff Leaders in the summer of my second year.
One of the most memorable things about our activities is how we planned a Vietnam Festival and made it happen. On the day, we introduced Vietnam through demonstrations of traditional martial arts and tasting local foods. Through the experience of creating an event together with team members from a diverse range of countries and majors, I discovered values and ideas that I hadn’t known about before, and it greatly broadened both my horizons and my network. It was the kind of wonderful experience that you only get to enjoy when you’re on the management side.
I chose a career path that emphasizes expertise
I belonged to a competitive strategy seminar in the School of Commerce, and once we were given an assignment to analyze a company’s business management strategy from a financial standpoint. Working on it awakened my interest in accounting—a subject I’d been somewhat averse to until then. I realized that accounting and business management strategies are two sides of the same coin, and that understanding accounting changes the way you look at individual companies and products.
Besides being interested in accounting, I also wanted to arm myself with some professional skills. With that in mind, I applied to join the CPA trainee recruitment program offered by PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata LLC, which is the company I currently work for. I started to study to become a licensed CPA when I received a job offer during my fourth year at university, and passed the exam in my first year at the company. Working as a CPA now, I find my role of helping customers conduct their business properly to be tremendously rewarding. I want to accumulate more knowledge and experience, and a future goal is to contribute to the development of the accounting audit system in Vietnam.
【Encounters at WASEDA】Approaching things with passion will help you find people you can share your ideas with
At ICC, when Student Staff Leaders plan and manage an event, they work as a team. When this happens, it’s inevitable that some people are more interested and motivated than others. To address this, we used trial and error to find ways to get everyone on board and working together toward the goal. What I noticed as a result of this was that if I engaged in something with passion myself, there were always people who would relate to my enthusiasm and become energized themselves. I also learned that when it comes to interacting with students from various countries, having any preconceptions about them based on their nationality will be an obstacle to truly understanding them. I still remember now to look at a person’s inner qualities rather than his/her superficial attributes.
- I also worked hard to negotiate sponsorship
For the Vietnam Festival, I asked the embassy and other parties for their cooperation. It was a valuable opportunity to learn the basics about how to proceed with work.
- An event I helped plan became an annual classic
My fellow members and I planned and held an event in which participants went all over campus to complete missions. It’s still an ICC staple back-to-school event even now.
- I also saw how high the level of circle activities was
I participated in a tap dance circle in my first and second years. I was tremendously inspired by the members’ serious attitude when they were preparing for one of our regular performances.
【Current Job】I aim to understand the people deeply, then figure out the best way to proceed with the work
At the auditing firm I work at, I’m involved in financial statement audits and accounting advisory services. The business description, corporate culture, and contact person’s personality and ideas vary from client to client. I try to gain a better understanding of them through many rounds of dialog, then figure out more suitable ways to communicate with them and proceed with the work. Depending on the project, we sometimes also put together a dedicated team and conduct an audit over the course of a few weeks or months. Consequently, whenever we do this, it’s also important to aim for mutual understanding between the team members as well as thoroughly knowing the client. While I was at WASEDA, the ICC would team up with Student Staff Leaders for each event, then we would all work tenaciously toward making it happen while sharing out the roles and helping each other. That experience is now helping me in my current work.
※This article is reprinted from Future Design Guidebook 2021.
