As an undergraduate, Isabella Williams \u201925 received internship offers from all of the Big Four accounting firms, a very rare accomplishment. <\/p>\n
She accepted an internship at PwC and is now an associate in the company\u2019s Investigations & Forensics sector, based in Boston. There she found both a professional challenge and very welcoming colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the magical moment of it all,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cI realized, \u2018This is my place.\u2019 It felt right.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
Strong grades and diligent networking helped Williams distinguish herself in the job market. She also believes that her two minors, one in crime and justice and the other in social responsibility in business, helped augment her accounting knowledge.<\/p>\n
During a trip back to campus in September, Williams spoke with accounting students and said that the key to landing a great job is persistence and being your own best advocate. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was always in search of people who can connect me,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cI would say to take any opportunity that you can. Go to leadership programs, get your name out there, and talk to people. One conversation leads another, which leads to forward progress. You\u2019d be surprised how eager people are to help you along the way.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
Williams was very active in UConn activities, working as an instructional assistant, serving as the Scholarship Chair for her sorority, Pi Beta Phi, and participating in leadership roles for HuskyTHON for three years. She remains involved in that fundraiser as an alumna.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone discovers a 25th hour in the day, let me know and I can fill it,\u2019\u2019 she joked. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen interviewers would say, \u2018Tell me about yourself,\u2019 I could say that everything that I did I was always passionate about,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cEveryone applying for these jobs is smart and a hard worker. But if you can talk about things that set your heart on fire, that\u2019s something special.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
Erin Leigh, the recruiting, career and external relations major for the Accounting program, said receiving an internship offer from all of the Big 4 firms is highly unusual. In public accounting, the biggest challenge is typically getting an internship, and 96 percent of UConn students receive a full-time offer from the same firm after completing an internship.<\/p>\n
UConn\u2019s Accounting program has a strong track record. Some 91 percent of UConn accounting majors had a full-time job or attended graduate school within three months of the 2025 graduation. Of them, 95 percent chose to start their careers in public accounting, and 74 percent of them secured jobs with one of the Big Four.<\/p>\n
Williams, a native of Long Island, N.Y., said she always wanted to be an accounting major, from day one. However it took some time for her to realize that she didn\u2019t want to pursue the traditional audit\/tax pathway. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been a numbers person but I didn\u2019t want to be an engineer. I thought I had the soft skills that matched well with business,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cAnd as for the forensics\u2026I like the \u2018cop\u2019 aspect of the job. I found the perfect intersection of my interests.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cThe day I toured UConn there was a basketball game and everyone was running into Gampel, and I thought that was great,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cBut UConn is much more than what you see on the surface. I found such supportive professors, I gained a lot of friends and mentors. Everyone in New England knows what a great university this is, and it is much more than a \u2018basketball school.\u2019\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cAt UConn, I learned to surround myself with people I wanted to be around, to develop great mentors, and to forge my own path,\u2019\u2019 she said. \u201cThose skills have been invaluable to me in the workforce.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UConn\u2019s Accounting program has a strong track record. Some 91 percent of UConn accounting majors had a full-time job or attended graduate school within three months of the 2025 graduation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":236851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1862],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-236848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-busn"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 19:23:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236848"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236852,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236848\/revisions\/236852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/236851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236848"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=236848"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=236848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}