Matthew was an assurance intern for WSRP LLC during Summer Term 2023.
Briefly explain what you did and the result of your internship.
I conducted audit tests surrounding balance sheet accounts, particularly assets and liabilities. I was able to test a lot more areas than I expected, I performed tests for assets such as cash, prepaid expenses, and property, plant, and equipment and liabilities such as accounts payable, deferred revenue, and notes payable. Most of these accounts have corresponding income statement items which meant I would simultaneously ensure that revenues and expenses were properly and fairly stated. This provided reasonable assurance to financial statement users that those particular financial statement items were fairly stated.
What did you learn on your internship that you were not expecting to learn?
Humility. I learned that there is so much I don't know and that I have so much more accounting and auditing knowledge to develop.
How have your future plans changed because of what you learned from your internship experience?
Yes, I may end up working at my firm part time during the semester. Prior to the internship I was not planning on it.
Please share how your experience led to personal inspiration or insightful revelation.
It was certainly eye opening. I need to remain humble, act and not be acted upon, and continue to increase knowledge. Here is an experience from my internship diary... "Today, I found myself filling time with extra trainings videos. My new hire buddy did not have any work for me and someone in HR recommended I watch additional training videos in preparation for particular audits coming up. Between today and last week I felt as if that’s all I was doing. I decided to take better ownership of my time by taking control of it. I came to the realization that I was not going to get as much out of this internship if I was going to be acted upon and not act for myself. I checked a staffing software and saw an upcoming engagement I would be working on. I walked into the manager’s office over the engagement and asked how I could help. He immediately gave me three things to do. I learned a lot about justice from this experience. Feeling sorry for yourself will not get results, but being responsible and being proactive will."
Would you recommend this internship to other students?
Yes, WSRP is a great firm. I learned so much more than I expected and really applied myself and because of that got a full time job offer. The team is amazing to work with and anyone would build great relationships with the staff there.
Is there anything else you would like to say regarding your internship?
If I were to do it all over, I would intern with this firm during the winter since doing it in the summer is far less busy and you may be scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find something to do.
