This is the story of how I decided to transition from my accounting job at EY to getting a PhD in accounting.
I started working at EY in tax in July 2018. Nine months later in March, I had endured a brutal Spring busy season where, due to the time crunch our team was constantly under, I was regularly cranking out tax returns to be reviewed without fully understanding what I was doing. I wanted to take a step back and really understand what I was doing and why. I was living in LA at the time and looked into getting a master’s degree at USC. My husband was just finishing up his master’s in accounting at USC, and his positive experience made me optimistic about the potential of studying at such an incredible institution.
After applying to and very fortunately getting accepted into the program at USC, I started entertaining the idea of pursuing a PhD. I had been exposed to the PhD option during my time at BYU, but had decided against it because I was intimidated by research. Back then, I had read the first few pages of a debt contracting paper by one of my former accounting professors, and understanding about 10% of what I was reading was enough to terrify me to my core.
In an attempt to figure out whether research was something I could see myself doing, I reached out to a good friend who had just finished her first year of the PhD in accounting at Texas A&M. She encouraged me to try reading the abstracts of some other published papers to get a feel for what it was like. Debt contracting is far from the only pursuable topic in accounting, after all. She recommended about 5-10 specific papers in tax that she thought I’d enjoy, so I read all of those abstracts. Shockingly, I understood more than 10% of what was going on. Even more surprisingly, I found 2-3 of the abstracts to be quite interesting. So I ventured out on my own and found some more tax papers. I read some more interesting abstracts. After getting this very rudimentary exposure to what research really was, I realized that research can be interesting, and I could potentially see myself doing it.
Accounting is unique from many other disciplines because the classes in a master’s program (accounting rule based) are very different than the classes in a PhD program (big-picture oriented with significant ties to economics and finance). Because of this, I knew that many of the masters’ level classes at USC were not going to be directly relevant to a PhD. I tried to work with the degree program to swap out some of the required coursework for other classes that would be more helpful for me, but because of department requirements and other rules, it became very clear to me that it was not likely to occur at USC.
Amid all of this, I was simultaneously looking into PhD programs. I quickly discovered that acceptance rates for PhD programs in business are abysmally low. Most disciplines at top schools get about 100 applicants and accept two to three students per year—a 3% acceptance rate. Not great odds. Disheartened by this, I started to question if I was making the right decision. I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for this—if I was smart enough, determined enough, or brave enough to pursue this dream that I now had. I felt silly for considering leaving my job and going into a field that I knew very little about.
During this time, I was in an Uber in downtown LA on my way home. As I was looking around at the beautiful skyline of Los Angeles, I saw a brightly lit billboard—a Nike ad featuring Serena Williams that read, “if they think your dreams are crazy, show them what crazy dreams can do.” I realized that my dream may be a little bit crazy, but I had to at least try. That Nike ad gave me the courage I needed to press forward with this "crazy" idea I now had to get a PhD.
Soon after that experience, I started looking into the master’s program at BYU. Their program is unique because it gives students the option to be in the “PhD Prep Track,” which is a sequence of courses designed specifically for students pursuing a PhD afterwards. It was exactly what I’d need to help me transition from Big 4 to a PhD program. I applied to the master’s program and was miraculously accepted despite having applied 2 months after the deadline. After much deliberation (my husband and I adore LA and didn’t want to leave), we decided to move back to Utah for me to pursue the master’s in accounting program at BYU.
Looking back on this experience now, I am so grateful for this journey. Back then, I had no plans of leaving Big 4 or LA anytime soon. I wasn’t looking into exit opportunities. But I absolutely love what I do now, and a master's at BYU was exactly what I needed to prepare me for the PhD at UNC.
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