“I chose to study business and accounting because there are good job opportunities in these industries. If you take it seriously you will have a solid career and be recompensed for your good work.

I had recently moved to New Zealand, and I was learning English before studying. At MIT I felt included for the first time after three years of living in New Zealand, I felt I had a family, and I was finally being part of the New Zealand culture. I choose MIT because the campus is close to my house, however, soon I started loving the environment, the culture, the small classes, and the lectures. The lecturers know you by name, they will sit by your side, and they will help you out. You will learn real-word activities and will be confident about yourself.

I had assignments focused on practise; MIT led me to the job market faster.

I am in my current job because MIT placed me there to complete my industry project. The placement was essential to put me in the job market. I had so many interviews before that, however, I could not show all my potential and who I was in a one-hour interview. The placement gave me the opportunity to show my employer my good work.

At the beginning it was not very accounting-related, but I asked for more responsibilities and more accounting-related tasks. They liked my attitude and provided me with tasks such as bank reconciliation, processing invoices and doing some simple journals; after two months I started completing my first set of financial reports and tax returns for a small client. They liked me and offered me a permanent job position as their junior accountant even before I concluded the placement period.

I bring the practice from my classroom assignments and exercises to my work.

About three months after I graduated, still working in my current position, I received an email from a client telling us they were considering buying a new business. Before I forwarded the email to my boss, I remembered some of my assignments at MIT – researching about buying, starting, and doing analyses about a business. So, I wrote down a list of personal advice that I considered important for that business such as target market, product pricing, direct and indirect costs and showed to my boss. My boss used most of my notes to advise the client about their business purchase and I was able to do that just because I had so many practice exercises about the real-world of business from MIT.”

Suelem Da Costa Pereira
MIT graduate