Research Symposium

BIO

Kaitlyn Braica is a freshman at FSU majoring in Political Science, with further interests in accounting and economics. She is from Boca Raton, Florida.

Accounting Alumni Success Factors Project

Abstract

The Alumni Success Factors Research Project is designed to give FSU’s College of Business the crucial information they need so that they can better support the success of their accounting graduates. An archival study was conducted, where each former accounting student from FSU -graduate or undergraduate- was researched on Linked-in and other social media platforms, and data about their race, gender, employment history, further education, awards, and extracurricular activities were compiled into a spreadsheet. The second form of data collection was a qualtrics survey, which was emailed to every known accounting graduate, dating back to 1975. Both sets of data were used to conduct regression analysis and t-tests in order to identify which aspects of a resume correlate with high salaries and promotions to titles of CFO or Partner. There were many findings, the most notable being that there was not statistically significant evidence that FSU’s accounting graduates have been impeded by gender discrimination in the workplace. Using these conclusions, FSU’s Accounting program is able to identify systematic issues their graduates face and focus on developing opportunities for students that correlate directly with success in their careers.

Keywords: Accounting Alumni Success Factors