Minyi Chen
It did not take long for teachers at Perry Hall High School in Baltimore County to recognize Minyi Chen’s math skills and to steer her in the right direction.
“Math has always come naturally to me, and my accounting classes in high school prepared me well for Towson,” says Chen, and it's not just the academics that Chen finds impressive at TU. “As a freshman, my Accounting Professor Arundhati Rao required us to write a report after attending Accounting Club meetings and the department’s Career Fair,” says Chen. “In her own way, she pushed us to network and to make connections, which are so important in this field.”
Chen’s mentor, a former president of the Accounting Club, reinforced the value of membership in student organizations. “Through that group, I got a good idea of what a public accountant does, and my experiences helped prepare me for interviews,” she notes. She also served as vice president of the Student Leadership Council, composed of leaders of all the student organizations in the College of Business and Economics. “My job is to participate in monthly meetings and present Accounting Club activities to deans and College of Business and Economics advisory boards to let them know what CBE-related student groups are doing,” says Chen.
That preparation helped Chen, a combined accounting and actuarial science and risk management major, attain a highly competitive internship in the accounting department at Baltimore Gas and Electric Company, Maryland’s largest gas and electric utility, a placement few sophomores are awarded. A testament to Chen’s hard work was the receipt of a $10,000 academic scholarship from the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) for the 2018-2019 academic year. The scholarship recognizes student interest and aptitude in accounting and auditing and high ethical standards and encourages students to pursue careers in auditing.