This I Believe After reflecting on what is important to me in my professional career, I have defined my professional values as courtesy, dependability, and challenge. Throughout my career and jobs that I have held over the years I have worked in a customer service industry a great deal. From retail, to restaurant service, to financial planning, my job structure has been based around serving and working with the public and clients. I have learned a lot through the various positions that I have held and continue to learn more as my career moves forward. Customer service has always been one of my stronger suits. I believe that being polite to others and behaving as I would like to be treated is the most important value in one’s profession. I feel that when you work with others, being positive and polite can not only make your day go by much smoother and more pleasant but can also provide more positive outcomes and opportunities. As the old adage goes, ‘you can catch more bees with honey than you can with vinegar.’ I have come to realize that everyone, regardless of their position or job title, plays a valuable part in getting a job and making a business operate effectively. Therefore, it is essential to be able to depend on each and every person in the work place. I have learned over the years that everyone's work influences someone else's work and/or outcome. In addition, everyone depends on someone else in one way or another to get their job done. I learned this valuable lesson when waiting tables throughout college. When you are a waitress and your bus boy does not show up for work on the busiest night of the week you can find yourself in quite a pickle and are forced to do double the work and the lack of support largely effect the amount tips you receive from your customers.

One of the beliefs that I have always lived by is to ‘live each day to the fullest and enjoy each moment because you never know what tomorrow will bring’. Therefore, it is very important to me to enjoy the work that I do and to like going to work each day. One of the things that keep me going and peak my interests at work is to do challenging work. I enjoy performing task that are difficult and that challenge my knowledge and skills. That is one thing that I find so fulfilling in a career in accounting and financial management. Working with numbers, balancing budgets, and finding solutions to difficult problems keeps me motivated to work hard at my job. It is very rewarding when I overcome a difficult challenge and find the best solutions. One of the reasons that I have decided to go back to school and further my education with a Master’s degree in Accounting and Financial Management is so that I can move forward in my career and increase my knowledge so that I can take on more difficult challenges and provide more effective solutions.