COAP

The motivated high school juniors participating in this year’s Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession (COAP) program -- which celebrated its 25th anniversary this year -- obtained valuable career advice from experienced CPAs and soon-to-be accountants.

It was a dual celebration: Graduates of the Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession (COAP) program joined with program founders at a banquet held on June 30 at Pace University to mark the close of the 2011 residency and to commemorate 25 years of the program’s success.

It’s been more than 20 years since Richard Chow, a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City, completed the Pace Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession (COAP) program in 1990, but he still vividly remembers the experience and the lasting impact those five days had on him.

The Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession (COAP) kicks off its 25th year next week. More than 2,700 students have taken part since the program first began. But how did it all begin?

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Theresa Tsang, CPA, was a junior at Brooklyn Technical High School with an interest in accounting when she heard about COAP, and jumped at the chance to get her first “real exposure” to the profession.

Jessica Santana was a junior in high school when she decided on a career in accountancy. It was the summer of 2006, and Santana was attending the COAP program at Long Island University (LIU)–Brooklyn. Now a motivated accounting major in her senior year at Syracuse University, Santana has another choice to make: When she becomes a CPA, what should be her specialty?

Whether it’s with an important client or a potential employer, you only get one chance to make a first impression -- and so, for the career-minded professional looking to break into the CPA world, knowledge of proper etiquette is de rigueur. As an instructor at Pace University’s COAP program, Natema Hines, herself a graduate of the 1993 class, has been helping COAP students navigate the world of proper dining etiquette since 2000.

The COAP program opened Madelline Kang’s eyes to both the flexibility and stability that a career as a CPA can provide.

When Shonette Harrison Carew began her accounting degree at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business in 1992, she knew she was coming to a place where there was already a supportive network of people looking out for her success -- thanks to the time she spent at the Pace COAP program the summer before.