Sierra Hazard, ’21, is an Accounting major with a CPA emphasis and Human Resource emphasis. Throughout her four years at Albion College, she has been an active member of ten organizations on campus and has held five executive positions some of which include Union Board’s President of Finance, Delta Sigma Pi’s Vice President of Community Service, and Alpha Chi Omega’s Vice President of Recruitment. Additionally, she has been admitted into three honor societies, Mortar Board, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Omicron Delta Epsilon, for her dedication to leadership, service, academics, and Albion College’s campus and community. Along with her achievements in extracurricular activities, she has been recognized as an Albion College Fellow, received the Cultural and Community Dedication Award, and has been placed on the Dean’s List every semester enrolled at Albion College.

During the summer of 2019, Sierra completed an assurance internship at Clayton & McKervey in Southfield, Michigan. She performed 401k audits, reviews, and complications while developing and applying an intermediate knowledge of auditing theory to her work. In the spring of 2020, she studied off-campus at The Philadelphia Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and completed her second internship at Leadership Solutions, Inc. working as a consulting intern where she partnered with consulting staff to support client engagements related to leadership assessment, executive coaching, and training. This past summer, Sierra completed her third internship in the FSO Assurance service line at Ernst & Young (EY) out of the Boston, Massachusetts office. There, she assisted in the performance of general audit procedures and planning for Financial Services clients such as insurance companies and banks, and identified and communicated audit issues, technical matters, and improvement opportunities to her team in order to resolve client issues.

“I have gained just as much professional, research, and hands-on working experience inside the classroom at Albion College as I have in all three of my off-campus internships and engagements. The opportunities for success in the E&M department are endless and I have taken advantage of everything Albion College has to offer.

I enrolled in two directed studies with additional research components I was interested in learning more about. The first being Business Policy where I grasped business policy for remote employees and the second being Women in Business and Leadership where I completed research on the wage gap. I was also enrolled in two E&M courses, Human Resource Management and Managing People and Organizations, that allowed me to engage in various real-time consulting projects; one at Caster Concepts in Albion, MI regarding employee engagement and second at Google in Ann Arbor, MI where I focused on productivity in their workplace. I was able to visit both client sites various times throughout the semester and provided constructive feedback to both companies on alternative approaches to their current business model. My most memorable moment at Albion College was when I traveled abroad to Paris, France after enrolling in International Entrepreneurial Exchange, a global business course. I participated in a year-long global partnership with a graduate institution in France and conducted marketing research, feasibility studies, and developed a business plan to pitch to investors.

As I wrap up my senior year, I will be assisting a professor in the creation of Albion Labs and will present my thesis on ‘Buying & Selling Companies’ at Elkin R. Isaac Research Symposium. I am applying to MBA programs as an early-career professional and will be ready to take the CPA exam immediately after graduation!”