Welcome back to another semester at BYU.  As most of you know, this semester we have a lot to do with Vita.  To get things started we had an orientation on what Vita is and how to get signed up.

Vita is a student-ran tax return service to provide free tax return for the students at BYU campus.  At BYU we have the largest in the nation.  Last year we filled out around 2000 tax returns and had 106,410 volunteer minutes.  There are a few other schools this year that are providing competition to our numbers, so we hope that you all come out strong this year to keep up our record.

Jacob Hager, site coordinator, going over training and certification requirements.

They also introduced an opportunity that we have to learn about taxes on international students.  We can learn the different rules that apply to our foreign friends to provide this free tax service for them.  There will be little overlap between the regular workshop in February and the international service in March, allowing you to sign up for both.

We have a talent that we can use to serve the student body around us.  By using this talent, we can help reduce the stress level our colleagues, and help them have a great experience with tax this year.
If you have questions on how to register or to take part, talk to Jacob, or send your questions to vita.byu@gmail.com.

It was a full house, complete with people standing and sitting on the floor.

What a great year this has been.  I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of Beta Alpha Psi.  We heard a few awesome insights from Jeff Pooley, our president and from Sister Budd our advisor.  These are some things to keep in mind as we move forward into the New Year.

Professional meetings that we have every week will help you out in the long run.  In the words of Jeff “These meetings are exactly what will set you apart from other students.”  I feel that if we take the initiative to remember what we discuss in the meetings that we will be better able to stand out in our interviews.  Remember, “Firms look for their rising stars early on, the people they will promote in their organizations.” 

They next introduced us to the fact that some of the officers get to go to national meetings of BAP to meet with officers from all around the country.  I can imagine that the trips are productive and a lot of fun.  Sister Budd wanted us to know how she feels about the meetings, “I feel like our purpose to go to those meetings is to give ideas to struggling chapters.”  We are really blessed to be among our fellow BAP members and that together we can accomplish a lot.

Our BAP chapter has had a superior status pretty much since it was founded here at BYU.  There are some certain requirements to have this designation.  Allison gave us a wakeup call; she showed us that we are not doing so great at reaching these levels.  We need to step up our service this coming semester so that we can continue the superior tradition here at BYU.

A New BAP Member's View of Initiation

"It feels great to be a part of another organization again.  Being initiated this last Thursday brought back a lot of great memories of when I was in a service group in high school.  I am glad that I found BAP and am able to serve with fellow members to build this great community.  I am excited to serve, and make BYU a better place to study.  I am ready to help provide opportunities like Meet the Firms and other events, to students to help them learn about the business field.  I am thrilled to be here."

Last week we were privileged to have Les Brown come and teach us about work-life balance.  Les Brown is the COO, CFO, CCO, and a partner at Huntsman Gay Global Capital.  He first took time to explain his background.  He got his masters here at BYU and worked a lot with Professor Budd in Beta Alpha Psi.  He wanted to encourage us to use all of the resources that we have here at BYU.  We have so many great opportunities at BYU.

Work life balance is a hard thing to find when you are in the profession of accounting.  It is in the nature of the profession to be into work early and go home later than the others because we are the custodians of the business’ assets.  It may be hard to find a balance, but it can be done!  Les gave us four things that will help us become better professionals, students, and family members with balance in our lives.

The first thing that Les spoke about is the need Manage our Expectations.  To do this we need to communicate with our colleagues at work and with our families at home.  Let them know what you will be able to do for them.  He also found that it is common for most people to over promise and under deliver.  We need to overcome this habit so that we do not have as much time pressure from both sides.

The second point is that we need to Make Time for Family, be Present When you are There, and Keep Appointments and Promises.  Just like the Mormon ads used to read “Family, isn’t it about time?”  When we are at school, home, or work we need to focus 100% on what surrounding we are in.  If in the office, be in the office.  If it is family time, be with your family.

The third point is to Distinguish Between the Importance and Urgency of the Tasks you Have in Your Life.  Les referenced Steven Covey’s Book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” Here is a link to some quotes from other sections of the book.  http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/18/steven-r-covey-quotes-7-habits-of-highly-effective-people-quote/.  Importance is related to activities that lead to our personal and professional goals.  Urgent is related to activities that demand immediate attention and are often associated with the goals of others. We have four sections in the urgent-importance chart.

1. High importance and urgency: Critical Actions, We do not want many of these, do not procrastinate, and set aside some time to deal with emergencies
2. Low importance and High urgency: Interruptions, these happen, learn to say politely say no or not now, or you can set a time when people can bring you their questions.
3. Low importance and urgency: Distractions, roadblocks to our goals; down time is good but it still hinders us from getting important tasks done.  Avoid if possible.
4. High importance and Low urgency: Essentials to your goals, where you want to spend most of your time.  Plan time every day where you can focus on these activities.

The last advice he wanted to give us was to Identify and Emulate Effective Role Models.  He gave us nine great role models by showing us a clip about “The Mormon Way of Doing Business: How 9 Western Boys Reached the Top of Corporate America.”

Here is the clip he showed us http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-GllaD4FEM, and if you want to find out more go to http://www.fm.co.za/lifestyle/books/2012/11/01/the-mormon-way-of-doing-business and look around.

This week we had a discussion on how we can make Beta Alpha Psi better for us as members and for future students to come.  We would like to let everyone know that our Beta Alpha Psi meetings are for everyone.  Even if accounting students are not in Beta Alpha Psi we want to fill the room when we have professional speakers come and enlighten us. 

Beta Alpha Psi is an amazing organization and professor Budd would like to thank everyone for being so willing to step up and take on assignments.  The students are what make BYU Beta Alpha Psi great.  

We talked a little about the introduction of a Mentoring Program, which will require a lot of volunteers. The planning is still in the works, but it has a lot of potential to make BYU that much better at propelling its' students into great careers. This program will help new Junior Core students to be able to see the full spectrum of career paths that they have open to them.  Especially providing more visibility for firms other than the "Big 4."To help us out with the whole process we will be having an accounting interview meeting on the 27th of February at 4p.m.  The location and more details will be provided in the upcoming weekly email.  

Also remember that Bill Brady is here to help us out with our resumes and with interviewing skills.  We can make appointments with him to give ourselves more experience with the recruiting process.  We have so many resources here at BYU to help us out, we need to remember to use them. Good luck to everyone in this semester's school work and recruiting!