By Katie Bahr
The Vanderbilt Master of Accountancy (MAcc) program partners with liberal arts colleges and universities to offer undergraduates interested in business an opportunity to launch a career in public accounting with only 12 additional months of education. Through the Alliance program, Vanderbilt offers several benefits to applicants from select partner schools, including a $10,000 base scholarship and junior year admission.
Furman University is one of the MAcc program’s partner schools, and several dozen Furman graduates have attended the program over the years. In this spotlight, we talk with Jackson Ferrell and Ben Kingsbury, who both graduated from Furman University in 2018 with majors in business, about how the MAcc contributed to their career goals.
The institution: Furman is a premier, private liberal arts college located near Greenville, South Carolina.
How they came to find Vanderbilt MAcc: Both Kingsbury and Ferrell started thinking about Vanderbilt’s MAcc program during Furman’s Business Block — a one-semester program that groups 30 students in full day classes, four days a week. Neither Kingsbury nor Ferrell studied accounting as undergraduates, but the Block showed them how important the discipline is to understanding what’s going on at a business.
“Having the technical skill to speak accounting and do the modelling helps me take macro-economic trends and narrow them down to a particular company,” said Ferrell, who double majored in business and economics. “That is an interesting gap that accounting lets me bridge.”
Kingsbury likewise saw accounting as a vital foundation for the business world. Both Furman graduates began considering the MAcc after Director of Admissions spoke to their Block class about the opportunities it affords.
“Accounting is the link to business,” Kingsbury said. “Going to Vanderbilt’s MAcc was a great way to see what companies are out there and understand how they function.”
The Furman + Vanderbilt experience: Both originally from Nashville, Ferrell and Kingsbury had easy transitions from Furman’s “bubble” to a larger, more metropolitan setting. They said that the broader opportunities at Vanderbilt offer Furman graduates options to retain the small school feel and branch out.
“No matter how you feel about the bubble, you can find a version of what you like at Vanderbilt,” Ferrell said. “You can break out into the larger city, the larger Vanderbilt, or get involved in the Owen Graduate School of Management clubs.”
Kingsbury adds that the MAcc program makes it easy to meet people and develop a close-knit community similar to that of Furman. “Meeting people is really the key to getting a little bit of what Furman is,” he said. “Nashville is a great, welcoming city and there are people from all over in the MAcc, so you can do it. You just have to get outside your comfort zone a little.”
The next chapter: Kingsbury and Ferrell see accounting and the MAcc program as the base to broader business careers. Both got positions at major accounting firms in Boston after graduating and credit Vanderbilt’s reputation as well as training within the MAcc for their recruiting success.
“I’ve always wanted to work abroad somewhere, and I’m really well set up for that with a big company like EY,” said Kingsbury, who double majored in business and Spanish. “Vanderbilt’s name helped open doors outside the Southeast, and the MAcc gave me the technical skills and practice in soft skills surrounding recruiting and networking to get my job and be good at it.”
Ferrell likewise says the MAcc program broadened his opportunities both now and in the future. “I definitely would not be working at KPMG without the MAcc. I didn’t have a good grasp of the job coming out of my undergraduate degree,” he said. “I’m in the weeds of company finances now, and I think these skills, paired with liberal arts thinking, are going to help me step back and think about the business world holistically later down the road.”
Advice for Furman students: Ferrell and Kingsbury had limited experience with accounting before coming to the MAcc, and they advise Furman students interested in business to gain exposure to the field.
“Take any sort of accounting course and get a better sense of what it is,” Kingsbury said. “There is a lot more to my job as an auditor than bookkeeping. And the ability to be current with what’s going on in the financial world is a great skill to have in your toolkit.”
Ferrell encourages even non-business majors to consider the MAcc program. “If you know you want to go into the accounting world, it sends you out so, so prepared to do the job,” he said. “You shouldn’t count it out if you don’t have accounting or business background. You learn so much in one year that you’ll get immersed and still do well.”