Natasha Rimba, GSB 13, graduated from the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. So when it was time to look for a college, she didn’t have to look far.
Rimba, a native of Flushing, Queens, knew she wanted to stay in New York City, and she liked the Jesuit model of education. So she enrolled at Fordham College at Lincoln Center with visions of law school in her head.
She had a change of heart her sophomore year though. Accounting, which was offered nine miles north at the Gabelli School of Business at the Rose Hill campus, was calling.
“I’ve always been fascinated by numbers. Math was one of my strongest subjects when I was in high school, and I was also inspired by my father,” she said.
“He’s been working in the field for more than 20 years and he loves what he does as accountant.”
Although it meant she would spend an additional year working toward a degree, and would lengthen her commute from Flushing to as much as an hour and 45 minutes, Rimba never regretted making the switch.
Rimba said her decision to major in accounting was like eureka moment, and she fully embraced it through extracurriculars such as ALPFA, (Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting), where she served as treasurer while at Fordham.
In the summer of 2011, she attended the ALPFA-KPMG National Audit competition in Anaheim, California and at a career fair there, she landed an interview with the accounting firm Deloitte.
That led to an internship at the firm a year later, and now that she’s graduated, cum laude, she has a position waiting for her at the firm in October. Her summer days are now dedicated to studying to become a certified public accountant.
“I pretty much stay home and study all day,” she said.
“Only ten percent of the people who take the C.P.A. exam pass the first time around, so if I can pass two of them before I start working full time, that would be great. But if not, I don’t think I would be that disappointed.”
She plans to specialize in taxation, which she found she was good at after participating in the PriceWaterhouseCoopers xTAX competition her junior year.
“No matter what I want to do, whether I decide I want to do accounting, or maybe open up my own business, it’s very useful to know the tax law,” she said.
The internship that she parlayed into her current job was beyond valuable. Fordham’s Career Services Department was instrumental in her efforts too, helping her gain an internship at the accounting firm KPMG, which she turned down in favor of Deloitte.
“I don’t think I would have been able to get a job, or even an internship at the “Big Four” if it wasn’t for Fordham,” she said.
“All of my friends who majored in accounting were able to get a job or an internship at the Big Four. I think if you major in accounting, you shouldn’t worry about not having a job after graduating.”
