Alumni Newsletter Fall 2019

Brian Benson, a Manager in Assurance at EY and Negar Jamshidimehr, a Manager in Tax Services at EY speak to the attendees about their experiences.

New members being initiated into Beta Alpha Psi.

Beta Alpha Psi Spring 2019 Initiation Ceremony

The Gamma Lambda chapter of Beta Alpha Psi at Virginia Tech was formed in 1967 and is one of the top organizations on campus. Each semester, Beta Alpha Psi has an initiation ceremony for its newest members which includes a dinner for all involved faculty and student members. The Spring 2019 initiation ceremony for the 20 newest members of Beta Alpha Psi took place on Monday, April 29 th at The Inn at Virginia Tech and was sponsored by EY. The Spring initiation ceremony is an outreach event that allows an opportunity for the Beta Alpha Psi members to network with professionals and with one another over dinner, recognize new members, appoint officers for the coming year, and recognize upcoming graduates with the giving of Beta Alpha Psi Cords. The 2-hour event, which had about 75 attendees, was kicked off with opening remarks from the Beta Alpha Psi President, Shipra Pandey, who is a double-major in both Finance and Accounting. After delivering a thoughtful welcome, Shipra introduced the evening’s sponsors. Brian Benson, a Manager in Assurance at EY and Negar Jamshidimehr, a Manager in Tax Services at EY spoke to the attendees about their experiences and provided words of encouragement and advice about college, the profession and life. They were both happy to welcome the newest members of Beta Alpha Psi. Following the welcome and speakers, the attendees were served an excellent dinner. This was followed by the formal initiation of the new members. The officers of Beta Alpha Psi spoke to the key areas of importance to the organization with emphasis on education and service. Each new member was initiated through the Beta Alpha Psi pledge and were recognized for their accomplishments. After the new members were initiated, it was time to name the officers for the coming 2019/2020 academic year. Matthew Dasher, a current Junior majoring in BIT was named as the new president with Jingyi Zhang (BIT), Anthony Morales (ACIS), Joshua Gifford (ACIS), Elisha Ahn (ACIS) and Hammad Khan (BIT) announced as officers as well. Following the naming of the officers, graduating Seniors were then presented with Beta Alpha Psi Cords for graduation. Shipra Pandey then ended the meeting with inspirational and motivational closing remarks. The new members will be very involved with the current members throughout the year with weekly meetings and 12 hours of required com- munity service each academic year. Each Monday the organization hosts either a workshop or a company presenta- tion. So far this semester, the group has hosted an intern/professional panel, a Big 4 Partner panel, and presentations from EY, Deloitte, The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Baker Tilly, Cherry Bekaert, and KPMG. Each semester, the Beta Alpha Psi members, devote a few hours of their time for tutoring services to help students in the Principles of Financial and Managerial Accounting courses (ACIS 2115 and ACIS 2116) and Quantitative Methods courses (BIT 2405 and BIT 2406). The tutoring services are also another great way the members can interact with the VT community and promote the organization. The ACIS BAP officers also helped promote Accounting as a major at the Fall 2019 Majors Fair. Additional community service events and professional networking opportunities are slated for the Spring semester.

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