Blog post

The Accounting and Finance Society

Simran Kaur Chohan is a third-year student studying BA (Hons) Accounting and Finance. Apart from her academic studies, she is the President of the Accounting and Finance Society. In this blog, she discusses the perks of being part of the society and what opportunities there are for students to get involved with. 

By Simran Kaur Chohan - 13 April 2021

The Accounting and Finance Society is an academic society that provides a range of different activities for accounting students to get involved in. These include: getting help with your studies, attending sessions regarding placements, and having the opportunity to talk to students who have completed a placement year.

The society also helps students learn about what skills are needed for the workplace with guidance from guest speakers from well-known organisations. We also take part in fundraising activities for worthy causes and have fun! Plus it’s a great chance to meet like-minded students.

Being part of it can enhance your employability

Being a part of the Accounting and Finance Society will expose you to a variety of different opportunities, such as being able to network with others from different years, ages, backgrounds and become friends with them. As well as this, being a part of the society is a great talking point with employers in job interviews as it shows that you've had involvement with extra-curricular activities.

Having a keen interest in the society could allow you to take over committee roles in the future, such as President, Secretary, Social Secretary, and Treasurer. Becoming a committee member will also allow you to learn so many different skills including teamwork, communication, IT skills, and time management. These are all skills that can be showcased to a potential employer.

Additional real-world learning experiences 

The Accounting Clinic is another branch of the Accounting and Finance Society which allows accounting students from the University of Derby to support charities and SMEs with any accounting and finance-related advice or jobs such as bookkeeping and budgeting.

The Accounting Clinic benefits students as it means you can use your current knowledge and skills to gain an insight of what it is like to work in the accounting field. As well as this, working with clients will provide opportunities to network which could present prospects of potential internships, placements, paid work in the future.

Working with the Accounting Clinic mirrors what it would be like working in the industry with the chance to work on the same skills. Currently, we have clients ranging from a clothing company to a magazine company and students have been split into groups to deal with each client. Students have worked with their clients to successfully create a bookkeeping system for them.

Invaluable Opportunities 

The opportunities presented with becoming a member of the Accounting and Finance Society and the Accounting Clinic are invaluable. I would strongly recommend joining this society to any accounting student.

I would also like to say a special thanks to everyone involved in this initiative including all the accounting staff for all their support, the society’s committee members and the clinic members for all their hard work! The Accounting and Finance Society and the Accounting Clinic would not have succeeded without the help of all these people.

About the author

Simran standing outside, smiling, in front of trees.

Simran Kaur Chohan
Student in Accounting and Finance

I am studying BA (Hons) Accounting & Finance degree with a placement year.