Accounting students put through their paces with employer challenges

Accounting and Finance students at USW have had a glimpse into what their future careers could look like, after taking on challenges set by Rhondda Cynon Taf Council and Audit Wales.

The students, who are in their second year of the BA (Hons) Accounting and Finance degree, worked in groups as part of their Professional Development 1 module, which helps build employability skills with challenge-based learning.

The three top performing groups presented their findings at a celebration event, held at USW’s Treforest Campus, to an audience drawn from a range of external organisations as well as their lecturers and classmates.

The winning group – Elliot O’Connor, Ciaran Lucas, Dylan Lloyd and Adam Oliver – took on the Audit Wales challenge, which saw them measure the impact of the work Audit Wales does to empower improvement and change across the Welsh public sector.

They focused on reviewing outputs of Audit Wales’ reports to councils, health boards and NHS Trusts, exploring the responses of the audited bodies to these reports and whether any policy or budgetary changes were made as a result. The recommendations the students gave covered digital strategies, financial sustainability and health and wellbeing.

The Rhondda Cynon Taf Council challenge asked students to undertake a critical review of household recycling and waste collection methods in the UK, and come up with recommendations to the council to help them further improve their own recycling rates. To do this, they considered strategies deployed to influence behavioural change, as well as financial and non-financial issues, including the impact on carbon emissions, to complete a cost/benefit analysis of different methods.

USW’s celebration event was sponsored by the South Wales Society of Chartered Accountants, who work closely with ICAEW (the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales) South Wales. The ICAEW is a global professional body for chartered accountants, representing more than 208,000 members and students around the world.

Robert Lloyd Griffiths, Director of the ICAEW in Wales, said: “I was hugely impressed with the calibre of the students and the quality of their presentations. It was clear that lots of research had gone into them in a short space of time, and that they had really thought about the recommendations they were making as a result of their analysis.

“It’s brilliant to see USW collaborating with local employers to set these live briefs; that’s how the students can translate the academic into the world of work, which is hugely important.”

Sian Grainger, Trainee Co-ordinator at Audit Wales, added: “We want students to see us as the model employer of choice for a career in the audit industry, so building relationships with USW and setting challenges such as this is really important to us. Giving students experiences that replicate what they would see in the workplace helps them to interpret the figures and understand what that means to a business, and having these fresh perspectives is so beneficial in our work to regularly review our outputs.”

Neil Griffiths, Service Director for Finance at Rhondda Cynon Taf Council, said: “This has been a fantastic opportunity to engage with the students at USW. We’ve successfully worked in partnership with the University for more than a decade, and continue to provide students with challenge-based tasks that are not only helpful for us, but also meaningful and interesting for them. It’s great to see their confidence develop as they hone their research and report writing skills, and their analysis and ideas will feed into our work to make further improvements to our services.”