Learning something is not everything. But then, if you really know what you’re doing, it could mean everything to you.

I am a person busy with a lot of things. I like keeping myself busy. I love what I do. I love being just me. I am simple. I care less on where, what, whom shall I do the job with. But most of the time, I care on how I’ll do my job and why I do it in the first place.

Just to share, I never really wanted to become an accountant. I wanted to be a writer. But then my parents don’t want me to take risks like a correspondent does so they asked me to take Accountancy and then proceed to studying law. I knew it was a challenging course, that’s why I took it as that. If I can’t do what I want, I might as well be challenged by what I will take. I wanted to experience how hard it is.

And now, there’s no turning back. I really have to face up to this challenge that I’ve faced. I must be an accountant, an auditor. And yes, not just any accountant, a GOOD ONE.

First, I didn’t really like my course. Second, it’s challenging. Third, it all comes down to the fact that I’m really an active student leader and that I can’t use that when I graduate and it’s getting in the way. It feels like everything in the world is saying NO to me. I feel that every single day of my life.

But there’s one thing. One thing that keeps me going.

I know that when I become an auditor, it would be for the sake of other people—for the public. That’s the only thing that would matter to me. That’s why I value my honesty, my integrity. That’s why I’m still taking up accounting and enjoying it!

When I went to RFG, I don’t even have an idea what we will do. Yes, we’re going to do some audits. Yes, we’re supposed to experience what it feels like in the real setting, but nothing, nothing, literally, prepared me for something like this.

The job was demanding.

That perhaps is the only word I can give. It requires so much patience. It requires too much accuracy (Because of the NECESSITY TO BALANCE ACCOUNTS!). It requires a lot of time (for me).

When I saw how good the employees were, I was amazed. Without even looking at the keyboard number pads, they were really encoding amounts (in millions) and preparing formulas in minutes. It was fantastic! (Ha-ha!)

The first thing that I have to do was to prepare bank reconciliation. I found it easy. I know the topic because we’ve taken it up in financial accounting and reviewed it in auditing. But then, if you have to prepare bank recons for 3 banks of 1 company, with each month comprising of 15-20 pages per bank, I doubt it if I can’t consider it hard.

It was, really, honestly, very challenging. I want to finish it as early as possible so there wouldn’t really be too much hassle; so that I could already join in the auditing. It was what I wanted to do. Imagine, you don’t have to prepare entries for yourself. The challenge was to find faults in the system, or misstatements in the records. Feels like a detective; or a CSI, perhaps.

I loved what I did. Aside from looking at hundreds of pages of bank statements, I also was able to audit 1 non-operational account (Greg Ranch) and another operational account (Viva Video City).

You can see transactions, entries made, trial balances prepared, schedules and ITRs and CWTs to be submitted and filed as part of the working papers. The job was a hell of an experience, and I didn’t mean it to be bad.

When I had this experience, and I didn’t really mean it to be bad.

When I had this experience, I appreciated the value of my school. At least in school, we had our time. We can work when we want. We can at least, be free. In the office, we had to work like there’s not a minute to be wasted, fine. They were getting paid to do just that. (I meant WE, was getting paid to do just that.)

In the office, they continued working even during lunch time. They were all concentrated on what to do. Everyone was really focused on doing the job. No one goes home by 5pm. Everyone was still doing work and MOST of them stayed not just OVERTIME, but OVERNIGHT. (WHAT PASSION! WHAT DEDICATION!)

Now I really understand how much passion you need and how much dedication is required for one to become a real-life accountant/auditor. NO ONE DARES TO BECOME ONE. You need to love what you do. Good thing for me, I found a reason, a vision, for what I do.

I see myself reaching for a certificate as a CPA, as one of the placers. I’ll have to set my direction.

I’ll have to make a difference.

This is just the beginning.