Written by Edward Bouldin, Master’s of Accountancy, ’19
I woke up early for the second straight day in a row preparing myself for the over 30 minute trip to Ostrich Winkle. At this point I was thoroughly exhausted from the Initial Public Offerings, Audit Review processes and Risk Management Matrices that were being taught in my courses. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of each day, right after lunch I began fading fast since we talk for nine hours each class period.
I arrived to the campus and found a breakfast spot, as I usually do, and began looking for student activities that interested me. It seemed like that particular Friday was a bit slow in class as well. The weather was overcast and I couldn’t help but think about what else was happening around me while the lecture was taking place. I thought it would be cool to do something spontaneous. I knew that class would be over around 1800 and it would take me about one hour to get to Frankfurt. I thought that Frankfurt for the weekend would be an awesome get-away and just what the doctor ordered to rejuvenate me.
It would be a much-needed weekend since on Tuesday, only five days away, our next class would be at Pricewater Copper (PWC). That would be an experience that I needed to be rested for. PWC is one of the “Big 4” accounting firms and a very prestigious place from which to receive an invite. A weekend getaway would be just what I needed. At 1700, literally one hour prior to the lecture ending on Friday, I decided that I would ride the train to Frankfurt and…BUY A TICKET TO PARIS!
The plan was to leave early Saturday morning to Paris and return Monday. The trip to Paris from Frankfurt is approximately 3 hours. When you factor in a round trip ticket that gave me a six-hour block to review the case study that was to be presented on Tuesday for the PWC lecture. I arrived at 11:30am on Saturday in Paris and decided I would walk absolutely everywhere I planned on visiting. Time spent on the metro was less time I could have been seeing things. Because I am a natural extrovert, I decided to make this experience a street photography/street portraiture trip.
So for the next three days that’s what I did. Parisians are some of the best people I have ever encountered. Since this is the city of light I decided to make all of the pictures in color and not the typical Black and White that I usually use when I tell a story with my camera.
Paris was great but I was determined to have an even greater experience at PWC in Frankfurt. I put on my Sunday’s best and prepared for the 35-minute train ride. The PWC building is one of the (if not the…) tallest buildings in Frankfurt.
we all decided gathered for a group photo and then went up to the 48th floor of the building where we were treated with a view unlike I have ever seen over the great city of Frankfurt. It was a high-class affair from PWC. They provided refreshments for us as we sat through the lecture and worked through the case study. Mr. Anderson (one of our instructors and full time employee at PWC) divided the class into seven groups that had the responsibility of designing a Risk Management Strategy for a company with aspirations to become publicly traded. We had a lot of fun doing the case study. Next class we will wrap things up and prepare for our final exam!
