Alex Spear/Old Gold & Black
Seth Collie, a senior accountancy major in the Wake Forest University School of Business, looks forward to completing his undergraduate campaign before returning to Winston-Salem for a fifth year to receive his Master’s.
Collie has also enjoyed pursuing his other interests at Wake Forest, such as his love for music through his participation in the music department. He also served on the judicial branch of Student Government named the Board of Investigators and Advisors for two and a half years. Before becoming completely immersed in accountancy, Collie found his interests at a crossroads between business and law. In choosing his major, Collie often found himself leaning towards a political science major with a future of law school, but Collie found his passion for accounting and has been running with it ever since.
“I came in thinking about being a political science major. But I just figured I’d give Accounting 111 a try and see how it went. I did it, did well in it, and Dr. Jack Wilkerson encouraged me to think about choosing it as my major. I’ve been lucky in that I stumbled into it and ended up being good at it,” said Collie.
During his graduate year, Collie plans to concentrate on auditing and will double up on transaction services to fulfill his studies during his post-graduate career in Farrell Hall.
When asked which professors at Wake had the most influence on him, Collie wasted no time in naming Wilkerson and Dale Martin, both distinguished accountancy professors in the School of Business in whom Collie has found excellent guidance resourcefulness. “Dr. Wilkerson and Dr. Martin have both been so awesome and so helpful. They — and all professors here — teach at Wake Forest for a reason. They’re not just teaching — they’re doing research, they’re involved and they know people. If you need resources for anything, just use your professors and network through them. They want you, too. You can’t beat the faculty here,” said Collie.
When Collie departs from Wake Forest after his fifth year in the spring of 2015 and heads up the coast to Boston, Mass., to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers in the auditing branch, there are three aspects he’ll miss the most — and one is his favorite study spot. “I love the living room [in Farrell Hall], it’s my favorite place to study. In there, you can keep an eye on ESPN and study and have the buzz around you a little bit while you study,” said Collie.
Another part of Wake Forest he will miss is the comfort and safety of Wake that allows for personal growth.
“Take advantage of the Wake Forest community while you can — you can grow, make mistakes, find yourself and try new things here at Wake and I’ll miss those opportunities,” said Collie.
Above all, the Hickory, N.C., native will miss his friends and the people of Wake Forest.
“I’ll miss the friends that I’ve gone through all four years with. Friendships are at a different level here in college. You change a lot when you go through college and it’s a time when you see other people change too. I’ll miss the people here a lot,” said Collie.
A true representative of an ideal Wake Forest student, Collie will say goodbye to his undergraduate career this May, but will postpone his final goodbye as a student at the university for just one more year while studying at Wake’s fifth year MSA program.