For instructor Eddie Nabors, preparing students to enter the workforce is a labor of love. "I want to make a difference in young people's lives," he said.
This sentiment inspired him to create a speaker series for students in the accounting and finance department. One recent session featured Maddox Casey of Warren Averett CPAs and Advisors opens a new website talking to students about careers in healthcare advisory services.
"We have people coming from all kinds of different perspectives," Nabors said. "There are just so many things you can do with an accounting finance degree. We're just barely touching the surface here. We've got folks coming from public accounting who do tax, we've got a comptroller from the state of Alabama opens a new website, we've got internal audit people from Protective Life opens a new website, we've got folks from Regions opens a new website…and we've got folks coming from asset management."
Employees from Kassouf & Co. opens a new website also spoke recently about working with income taxes at a CPA firm.
The purpose of the series, according to Nabors, is to expose accounting and finance students to the array of career options available once they graduate.
"We're trying to get students to open their eyes," he said. "All the accounting people hear is auditor and tax, and all the finance people hear is banking, but there are so many things they can do. We're trying to expose them to things they never thought they could do with their degrees."
Nabors hopes that students who attend take advantage of the networking opportunity provided by the speaker series. He said having time for students to talk with employees at various local firms afterward is key, even if students aren't directly interviewing for jobs.
"The financing world in Birmingham seems to be small, and everybody knows everybody else," he said. "The more contacts and the more networking you can do, you never know when somebody you meet today maybe moves to a different firm next month and could be a valuable connection."
The speaker series isn't just about post-graduation. Nabors said he also hopes that hearing from professionals will influence the classes that Collat students take while in school.
"It might change some of their elective choices down the road, to better prepare themselves for what they think they want to do," he said.