Department of English

Eliana Mundula

I am studying at UNCC’s Belk College of Business, working towards my Master’s in Accounting. I was offered and have accepted a job working for the American member firm of accounting firm BDO International, in their core tax group (partly because they seemed enthusiastic about sending me on an international secondment!) I feel that my English degree did help me in my job search – it helped me stand out in a sea of accounting undergrads, and there’s nothing quite as fun as impressing a tax manager with a full Middle English rendition of Saturn’s speech from The Knight’s Tale. More practically, research and presentation are very important in tax accounting, since much time must be spent figuring out knotty sections of tax code and then explaining them to people who aren’t as familiar with it as we are. Good research practices are now second nature to me, as is modulating my speech for a particular audience. This served me particularly well during interviews, when I had to speak to both partners and junior staff members. While it may not seem as obvious, years of critical and analytical reading have prepared me to be skeptical as well as thorough in my work, which is very helpful in reading financial statements for classes and in preparing for the CPA exam. My English degree has taught me to speak well – to think clearly about what I want to say and then say it, not just with the correct grammar, but with the right words to appropriately convey a certain shade of meaning.
And when I am bored to tears of sale leaseback transactions and feel that my apartment has become Saturn’s “prison in the derke cote,” I can always think back fondly on days spent reading medieval tales.