Her Story
About Isabelle
I'm currently in my second year as a college student, pursuing a dual major in Information Technology and Accounting. I started out as an IT major and then decided to dual major with accounting. Now I'm on track to get my CPA license and also my master's in Accounting. I went straight from my bachelor's to my master's program, so I don't have any professional experience yet, but I'm doing an internship next spring with an auditing firm. My area of expertise is accounting and auditing, and I'm looking to pursue a long-term career doing internal auditing for big tech companies, which is kind of a mix of both my degrees, though I'd say I lean more toward accounting. What inspired me to get into this field is that it's a career field where not a lot of women go into. It's definitely more of a male-dominated field, and I've always been really interested in math and science. Being able to pave the way for women in that career field is super cool to me and inspiring. In my AITP organization, I'm one of the only girls in that, and it feels really cool to be part of something where you're breaking that stigmatism.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Isabelle
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would really just say to take every opportunity that comes your way. A quote that I always like to live by is, don't limit your challenges, challenge your limits. Being in college, there's always so many different opportunities that come up, and being able to network and meet a bunch of people really takes you so far. Obviously, you learn a lot in your classes and things, but I think soft skills go a really long way, especially in the hiring process. I would say doing things that are able to develop those soft skills, so taking every opportunity that comes your way, not just trying to focus on just your classes and school, but also the social aspects of college and the clubs and organizations and things like that.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say the biggest challenge is right now the job market for IT is very competitive, and also just trying to navigate how AI is kind of becoming really prevalent. That's pretty difficult as someone who is going to college, learning programming and things that are kind of getting taken over by AI. I'd say that's a pretty big challenge. Also just, on a smaller level, managing a bunch of different things at once. I think AI can kind of go both ways, because for accounting, I think it is helpful. It's definitely used as a resource with different software systems and things to help accountants do their jobs, but then on the IT side of things, different roles are kind of getting overturned by AI, so programming and different things like that are becoming automated now, so people that have those hard skills are not really being put to use as much. So yeah, I'd say it goes both ways.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Definitely schedule management. I think that's really important as a person who likes to be really involved in doing a lot of things. It can definitely get overwhelming if I'm not on top of things with managing my schedule and prioritizing things. And just being personable, I think that also gets you a long way. Like I said before, it's not really what you know, it's who you know, and I think that developing relationships with people has gotten me really far, and I think that that's something that's really important.
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