Affordability wasnāt Sarah Curleyās top priority when choosing a college. It was her only priority.
āŠÓ°É“«Ć½ was solely a financial decision,ā says the honorsĢżaccounting student from Salem, Massachusetts. āI canāt go to a school that I canāt afford, so I didnāt really look at all the different aspects of the university ā just financial.ā
Four years later, Curley ācouldnāt imagine going anywhere else.ā
āI am honestly shocked by all the opportunities Iāve had to travel, earn scholarships and make great connections,ā she says. āI came to realize that ŠÓ°É“«Ć½ is affordable and a great school.ā
Best of all, Curley has a full-time job waiting for her as an associate at accounting firm RSM in Boston after graduation.
āIām excited to have that locked in. I donāt have to worry about that now,ā says Curley, who worked as an audit intern at RSM the summer before her senior year ā an experience that sparked her interest in auditing.
āI feel like itās more personable. You get to talk to clients, and youāre not doing the same thing every day,ā says Curley, who was excited to take an auditing course following the internship. āThereās so much more to learn.ā
After starting college remotely during the pandemic, Curley hasnāt taken her time at UML for granted. She is president of Joy Tong Women in Business, vice president of the Accounting Society, a member of several honor societies and has played two club sports, rugby and soccer. She also works as an office assistant to the dean in the Manning School of Business.
At the encouragement of her accounting professors, Curley applied for, and received, a $5,000 MassCPA scholarship that was sponsored by RSM. She also won a scholarship from the Boston chapter of Financial Executives International.
āWithout that support from faculty, I wouldnāt have known about the scholarships,ā she says.
With help from the deanās office, Curley has also been able to attend Institute of Management Accountants conferences in Pittsburgh and Austin, Texas.
āI talk to friends at other schools and theyāre like, āWait, youāre going to a conference?ā The opportunity presented itself, and I applied,ā says Curley, who also studied abroad in Madrid, Spain, with the Honors College, an experience that āchanged me so much.ā
Curley is already working on her M.S. in Accounting through the Bachelorās-to-Masterās Program. She also plans to take the CPA exam as she starts her career at RSM.
āBefore I came to ŠÓ°É“«Ć½, I was undeclared and had no clue what I was doing,ā Curley says. āBut now, Iām leaving, and I feel like I know exactly what Iām going to do.ā
