The Blog

My random thoughts and musings during the PhD journey. Regularly updated by me (hopefully weekly). Rarely read by you (I know you're all here for the Excel tips.) In reverse chronological order, just like I like my unplayed podcasts (and if you want my podcasts recommendations, check out my Resources page.

Week 38 - Can't Sit Still - May 9, 2025

I told myself I would take a week break after finals to relax. And then I realized I had a presentation on Tuesday, and set up a bunch of meetings for Wednesday and Thursday. I'm already feeling the pressure to ensure my first-year paper is done timely, which is probably a good thing so that I don't wait until the last minute. I don't know that I'll have much to write over the summer for this blog but we'll see how it goes - I can tell I will get busy fast! Especially with a number of weekend trips already planned, the summer is going to go by quick.

Week 37 - My (School) Year in Review - May 2, 2025

Holy cow, I can't believe I'm already done with my first year. It really flew by. It feels weird having summer break (even though I will be writing a paper) and I wasn't sure what to do with myself all weekend. I am excited to be presenting to a group on Tuesday about Excel (and getting a little money for it too!) After that, I have a summer class that starts on May 12, but it should be fairly easy. I was joking with someone that I need a part-time landscaping job just to keep me in shape.

After one year, I reflect back and think two things. 1 - this was 100% the right choice for me and Sara. It has been a little challenging financially compared to what we were used to, but not as bad as we thought. And gaining back joy and mental health has been worth all of it. 2 - Except for the finals push and paper, it really wasn't as challenging as I thought it would be. I know it will get harder and I will cry about this when I'm studying for my comp exams next summer, but it's a pretty good change in pace!

Week 36 - Finals Prep - April 25, 2025

Finals week is next week. Lots of studying to do for my accounting seminar on Friday, especially since I learned how not to study for the last one. Hopefully this one goes much better. I'll have way more time for an update and Excel tip after this!

Week 35 - Oof - April 18, 2025

My exam did not go well. In fact, it might be the worst I've ever done on an exam. And then my paper took a LONG time and the data wrangling was much more challenging than I anticipated. But in talking through this in therapy (go back to the pre-reading if that comes as a surprise to you), there are 3 good takeaways for this end-of-first-year experience.

1. It feels a little bit unfair that my first seminar was also purportedly the hardest. However, after doing poorly on the comp-type exam, it now gives me an entire year of reframing my preparation for comps, rather than getting that surprise right before I have to take comps. So it was a good learning lesson and I have a gameplan for comps already!

2. I used to hate having reports be a race to the deadline, which always seemed to hit on a Friday where I was trying to leave work a little bit early in anticipation of a trip or long weekend. Sometimes, that was outside of my hands. This time, I alone control when I write my research. I will build in better checkpoints for future papers, as I did not enjoy spending pretty much my entire birthday writing when I could have gotten it done weeks ago!

3. It's probably good that I bombed an exam. I have fortunately always been a good test-taker; I passed the CPA exams on the first try and did really well on them. I am going to have students in the future who don't do well. This experience can only make me a better teacher, as now I have some empathy for how it feels, and what would help me going forward may help a future student.

And of course, it's all relative because I got to spend the entire weekend with family, including meeting my niece for the first time - and hearing my nephew shout for Ky Ky made me totally forget about papers and exams!

Week 34 - First "Comp" Done - April 11, 2025

Well my exam is done and it went... okay. Definitely focused too much on one component at the expense of another one that ended up on the exam. Oops! At least it was a good practice for actual comps about a year from now. I've finished almost all of the reading for the rest of the semester, so the last big hurdle is a research paper. I look forward to sharing a bit more about that in an upcoming post!

Week 33 - First "Comp" - April 4, 2025

I have my first accounting research seminar exam on Tuesday coming up. The most challenging part is going to be that the professor has picked 10 papers that we've read during the semester as "fair game". For the exam, she'll pick one of them, and we need to know the research question, underlying theory, empirical analysis/findings, main contributions, and strengths/weaknesses. Since I don't know which one, I need to know each of these papers pretty well... which is hard since it's been 8 weeks since I've read some of them!

But we have things to do this weekend so... Monday feels like a good day to start studying.

Week 31, 32 - Vacay During the Semester - March 21 and 28, 2025

I don't think I would have ever taken a vacation in undergrad if I wasn't on a break. It's amazing how much more you have your shit together when you're older. We did a mini ski trip from Wednesday night to Monday night, and I still stayed on top of homework and life in general.

However, I don't anticipate staying timely on posts for the next few weeks. I have a paper due on 4/19 and there is a lot to do for it, on top of the regular reading and other homework assignments. It's starting to feel a bit like the bad old days of busy season!

Week 28, 29, 30 - Spring Break - February 28, March 7, March 14, 2025

Spring break really threw me out of my routine that I feel like I had established 2 posts ago. My last class was Wednesday, February 26 and I didn't have class again until Monday, March 10. That's 11 days of no class (including 2 missed Friday posts). Maybe it's because my wife has a real job and we can't really go anywhere/do a spring break trip (plus I'm too old for Cancun spring break parties), or because I've done a few busy season grinds going from January through April, but I'd almost rather not have spring break. Let's just power through the semester, keep the routine going, and finish up a week earlier! 

With that said, it was a good spring break until the weekend before, when I was cramming all the homework I had planned to do earlier in two days.

Week 27 - Excel Training - February 21, 2025

I had the opportunity to run an Excel training this week and really enjoyed it. It's a nice reminder and encouraging that one day, I'll be in the classroom teaching. It was also a nice reminder of the things I don't miss about public accounting. I didn't have to worry about WIP, spending a day on noncharge time, worrying about balancing other clients, etc. If you're reading this blog and think an Excel training would be helpful for your group/organization, please reach out!

Week 26 - Routine Down Pat - February 14, 2025

With the way classes are scheduled this semester, I have gotten into a pretty good rhythm for getting my homework done ahead of time. It's incredibly refreshing to not feel like I have a pressing deadline, race-to-the-finish type of schedule anymore (both from public accounting at times, as well as poor time management at times last semester). I know this will not always be the case, but if it's any indication of my future life as a professor (the kids will get their grades when they get them 😀), it's a pretty good life!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. Remember that family and friends come over work/school, don't work too late!

Week 25 - Research Ideas Flowing - February 7, 2025

I have to do a first-year paper, second-year paper, and a dissertation. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself and I will probably look back at this post several years from now laughing at my naivete, but I feel pretty good about several ideas already for those topics. I present one of those questions to my research seminar class in a couple weeks, so hopefully the results that is a positive indicator that I am thinking on the right track!

Week 24 - Where did January Go? - January 31, 2025

Maybe it's because we didn't start class until Jan. 13, but it feels like it's way too early for the end of January already. I always remember at Hope being told that Fall is a marathon, Spring is a sprint, because with Spring, you have more breaks. That feels even more prominent at MSU. 3 weeks of classes until the end of January, a short 4 weeks of February until 1 week of spring break, and then 8 weeks of classes before finals. Buckle up, I'm not in sprinting shape!

I also got to go to the annual busy season hockey game that my former employer does during busy season today. I was sad to hear that a tradition I carried forward for many years, busy-season trivia, was not picked up by anyone for this year. If anyone at PM is still reading these updates, please pick that up!

Week 23 - If You're Joining a PhD Program, You Better Like to Read! - January 24, 2025

My updates are definitely going to be shorter this semester. There is a lot of reading every week. I stopped tracking my time after leaving public accounting (and what a great feeling that is!) but I will try to approximate it here. Maybe this will help me see if I'm really spending that much time on the classes, or if it just feels like a lot because reading is dense.

Seminar #1 - We're usually assigned 3-4 papers each week. Each paper takes about an hour to read. Then I have a summary for each paper to write, which takes another 45 minutes. I present one of those papers most weeks, which is another 45 minutes of prep. Class is once a week and 3 hours long, and it takes me about 1.5 hours each way (including walking) to get to/from class. So that's 12-13 hours per week.

Seminar #2 - We're assigned 2-3 papers each week. Again an hour to read. No summaries, but I do present one each week. Same drive and class length. So that's 10 hours per week.

Other class - I'm not entirely sure since we haven't been assigned anything yet besides reading, but based on 3 credit hours, it should be about 9-12 hours per week of commitment including class, plus my 3 hours of drive. So that's another 12-15 hours.

I'm at roughly 32-36 hours per week, which is actually pretty good compared to public accounting! And that includes travel time (although I had plenty of that in accounting too). However, none of that includes the 25-page research paper I need to write by the end of the semester, plus presentations of that paper. And the drop in hours is definitely not proportional to the drop in pay from public accounting!

So now that I've actually worked through the math, I should have time to update this blog weekly still. My Excel tips might just be links to other useful sites, rather than more of my own videos and walkthroughs. 

Week 22 - My First Midyear Meeting- January 17, 2025

For those who don't know, and I did not before leaving practice, the American Accounting Association (AAA, but not the kind that will send a tow truck on the side of the road) has a number of journals for publishing accounting research, brings together a ton of accounting professors for conferences, and even has a hall of fame of accounting. Today, I'm at the midyear meeting for the audit section.

It's very similar to other professional conferences in that you have an opening session, lots of breakout sessions, a reception at night, and rubber chicken for lunch at the hotel conference center. What I did not expect was for a panel session to get a little fiery. Accounting researchers are a surprisingly fiery bunch!

As I'm figuring out my research interests more and more, I don't know that this section meeting got me excited about audit. I found myself uninterested in a lot of the research topics (way too many standards). I am excited to try out a managerial accounting conference, hopefully next year. With that said, I had a lot more fun at the reception, held at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, than I anticipated and met a lot of great people. I have been very fortunate to have attended 3 conferences already my first year!

Week 21 - Homework Begins - January 10, 2025

Even though classes don't start until Monday, one of my accounting research seminars assigned some readings and a presentation already. It actually feels nice to get back into it; a month is way too long between semesters. This semester, I have 2 accounting research seminars and a quantitative methods in public policy course. All three of these courses will be quite applicable to my future work in research, so I am very excited to start this semester! And also a bit nervous on the course load now that I've seen the syllabus for just one of the classes. I hope to continue updating this site, but if I miss a week or two here or there, you'll know that was a heavy homework week!

Weeks 18, 19, 20 - A Long Holiday Break - January 3, 2025

Just looked at my previous post and realized something must have cut-off... because I definitely had more thoughts than just saying nobody cares about grades. And that makes it look like I did poorly, which fortunately, I did not! In fact, I had a whole list of things written out about what I was going to do over the 4-week break (including solving world peace) and for some reason, none of that saved.

This ends up being quite fortunate, because I got basically none of those things done. For example, I was all gung-ho about painting my home office walls. That didn't happen (though I did help paint my nephew's room, so at least I got some painting done!)

We have a long break in between classes at Michigan State. While I've used a lot of this time to rest, I enjoyed a lot of traveling to see family and friends, celebrated a great Christmas, and caught up on a fair amount of reading/econ-related crash courses that I've been wanting to do. I am not quite ready to start up again, but fortunately, I have one more week before classes start on January 13!

Week 17 - One Semester in the Books - December 13, 2024

Finished my exams and the first semester is already over! Nobody cares about grades in a PhD program.

Week 16 - The Final(s) Push - December 6, 2024

Short update because I have finals next week and am a bit nervous specifically about my microeconomics final. For goodness' sake, I passed the CPA exams on the first try, and I think this micro final is going to be harder. Hopefully it goes well!

Fortunately, my brother is also in a graduate degree program and has a microecon course. They are doing a public policy brief/analysis, and my professor thought that was a great idea. So we get to substitute some of the final grade for a take-home public policy brief. Now if I bomb the multiple choice on the final, it won't drop me below the 3.0 that I need!

Week 15 - Thankful - November 29, 2024

As we come off the Thanksgiving holiday, I am grateful for this new phase of life. Sara has been super supportive, and it is clear that even though financially we're in a bit of a different spot, mentally I am so much better. Past holidays at family have lately consisted of me wanting to totally relax, decompress, and not do anything. This year, we hosted family at our house and spent Thanksgiving Day at Sara's grandparents. I took the lead on most of the cooking and cleaning for both of those, which was both a gift to me and to family (well, unless they are just lying about liking the turkey!) It is a blessing to have the energy to live life in such high spirits again!

Week 14 - In Too Deep - November 22, 2024

I am on a weekly research call, which is very cool as a first-year. I also have no idea how to do the regressions/analysis being asked, and I don't even know the vernacular to ask ChatGPT to create the code for me, or to speak intelligently about what I don't know in the calls. I have never been good at asking for help, and I'm not doing any better here, even though I have resources to help me. As a result, I put off the research until the last minute, making it even harder to do and creating a spiral downwards. The opportunity to do research early in the program is great. But if you're reading this blog in anticipation of starting a doctoral program in the future, I'd recommend being an observer/shadow on a research project as you're still even learning what a regression is!

Week 13 - What Did I Do? - November 15, 2024

Ever have a mini-existential crisis? I had one of those this week. I was reading a research paper and had a few issues with it.

1. The topic was pretty boring (even moreso than other papers I've read).

2. The results had me thinking "sure the data shows it, but there is no way this is actually happening. If it is, it's just a side effect and not actually happening the way it's presented in the paper."

3. I admittedly have a bias. I think that having work experience is critically important to research and being an effective professor. I am not saying it's vital, and there are certainly exceptions to that, but in most cases, your research and teaching are going to be more impactful if you have experience in the accounting world.

So I'm having all these thoughts, after a somewhat challenging week personally as well, and wondering if I made a huge mistake. I had a good-paying job that I mostly liked. I was pretty good at that job. Why did I throw all of that away for reading papers I don't like, taking classes that are getting monotonous, and dropping down a tax bracket?!

Those weeks are going to happen. It's okay to have doubts. It's okay to not like something 100% of the time. I have the long game in mind, and while it's a risk to get there, it was worth it. What's something you've been doubting lately? If you are confident it has a purpose for the future, let yourself doubt and ask those questions. You'll get there eventually!

Week 12 - Major/Minors - November 8, 2024

Did you know that in a PhD program, you can also have a "minor", similar to undergrad? For accounting, the normal minor is a general business or econ minor. Fortunately, there is some flexibility with that. We're still figuring out the exact classes, but I am super excited to get a psychology minor! I have a deep curiosity why people do the things they do, and why organizations do the things they do (beyond just making money). This should supplement my research interests in fraud, management decisions, and audit choices very nicely. Plus, knowing a bit more about how people think will hopefully help me understand how I think too!

Week 11 - Are We There Yet? - November 1, 2024

It's wild how quickly the semester is going (it's already November, and week 10 of this blog?!) but also feels like I'm moving at a glacially slow pace. We're hitting the point in most of my classes where all the foundational work we've been doing starts to show its applications for my future research. However, it feels SO slow. I don't want to speedrun through the fundamentals, but I'm ready to actually understand all the math/significance of the tables and analyses in the papers I've been reading, especially at conferences. And especially since I was asked to run my first regression on some data points - assuming I even correctly controlled for fixed effects (I didn't, and don't know what those are), I couldn't tell you if the regression showed anything important.

I don't like feeling like an idiot, but I look at almost all of these papers and it's like reading a foreign language. I'd like to just know the language!

Week 9 - Another Conference - October 25, 2024

I have been really fortunate in attending conferences as a new student. I was able to attend my second conference, this time at University of Illinois. The only bad thing I can say about it is the drive is long and boring. Otherwise, it was another great experience and a good reminder that I am in the right place!

I always enjoyed presenting in my previous career, primarily because I had a fantastic public presentations class in college. This conference got me super excited to present my research one day, hopefully sooner rather than later. Now I just need some research ideas...

On the classroom note, I got all of my midterms back and crushed each of them. It feels good to get tangible results in the form of a grade. That was always hard for me in the professional world - am I doing fine? Can I measure it better? Did I get an "A" on that last investigation? With tests, you get the immediate feedback, which I appreciate! And green check boxes on online homework is nice too.

Week 8 - It's Fall (Break) Y'all - October 18, 2024

It's fall break. Too often we don't actually take a break from work, so I'm updating this a week later and keeping it short. In the words of one of my favorite podcasts, take care of yourself, and if you can, someone else too.

Week 7 - The First Midterm - October 11, 2024

Fairly short update this week. I had my first midterm on Tuesday (stats) and think it actually went very well! But I have a couple of midterms next week (math and microeconomics) that I'm focusing on and not as confident about, hence the shorter post.

But in more fun news - we snagged last minute tickets to watch the Tigers play at Comerica Park for their last home game in the ALDS. The crowd was electric and the atmosphere would have been fire (I think that's what the kids are saying these days) had they won, but sadly they lost. In micro, I'm learning a lot about budget constraints (something about a Lagrangian method, but don't ask me what it really means). Something the economic models don't factor in is experiences. While it was probably not the smartest use of funds economically, especially since we still need a new fridge (where are the Samsung reps reading this site?), it was 100% worth the experience with my wife and dad!

Week 6 - Research Begins - October 4, 2024

In exciting news, I had my first call related to research, and it's fraud-related! I won't put any specifics yet, but at a high-level, my requirements are a first-year paper, second-year paper, and my dissertation. This is a great starting point for a first-year paper, so hopefully it puts me in a good position to hit the deadlines! I'm excited to build out the research tab of this website once I start having good ideas flow in. Again, if you have anything you'd like to see researched, shoot me an email!

Week 5 - Classes Are Real, but Life is Realer - September 27, 2024

I mentioned in my last post that classes were starting to get more challenging, but was trying to keep that in perspective with the challenges others face. Well, I'll add my own challenge to that list. On Wednesday, I managed to fall off my roof. Certain questions, such as "why were you up there?" and "was someone else home?" can be answered with "no good reason" and "no, even though I already promised my wife I wouldn't do that in the past", and we don't need to belabor the point here. However, I share this to say that with a fractured wrist, school becomes a lot harder because typing is a lot harder. Fortunately, it's my non-dominant hand, so I can still write (although now that I think about it, maybe that would have been a good excuse to get out of some homework assignments!) And also to say, life is more important than classes, or work, or most other things. Take care of yourself!

On a more upbeat note, I attended my first MSU football game as an actual Spartan. Hopefully, my dissertation committee in the future doesn't beat me down as bad as Ohio State beat us this weekend. As a lifelong fan, I have seen plenty of these losses before, but, as the kids say, as someone with a bit more skin in the game than I have in the past, this one hits diffy.

Week 4 - Classes Get Real - September 20, 2024

Up until now, most of the classwork has felt like review of stuff I had learned at one point, which was nice since it had been so long since I actually learned any of it. My professors warned me up front though, graduate level courses move quickly, and they have indeed! I'm trying to keep it in perspective though. Without sharing any personal details, one of my fellow course mates came from another continent, and had logistic issues getting in for the first 3 weeks of class. They finally made it, and talking with them is a reminder of how we're all going through challenges. I have an hour drive, which can be tedious. They came to Michigan after essentially 2 days of travel with no connections in the state and no easy method of transportation once they arrived (at least, until getting set up with a bus pass). Which is all made even harder when you consider that without an international phone plan, they couldn't even make regular calls or texts until they were able to get to a T-Mobile store (which again, hard to do without transportation). Going through all of that, plus the classes, seems like an incredible challenge to me. And yet I have only seen a smile on their face. Which again, brings it all back to perspective.

On the challenges note though and a bit more light-hearted, if you remember my first week's post about not starting house projects when you start school... I still can't figure out the outlet situation. I know in the services world you can get inexpensive, high-quality, and fast, but you can only pick two. But if you're reading this and have an electrician friend who is both high-quality (at least, won't burn the house down) and inexpensive (I am a college student after all), and maybe has a bit of time in their schedule in the next 2 weeks, I'm out of ideas!

Week 3 - First Conference/Workshop - September 13, 2024

I was able to attend my first workshop, a Corporate Governance-focused day where four different researchers presented some of their latest research topics. What I mostly learned is that you can have the greatest slides in the world, but you're not getting through them. Everyone basically gets five minutes to set the stage, and then attendees just rip you apart! In a good way though. They're just trying to poke holes in your paper to make it better for when you publish. 

My other big takeaway is that networking is just as important in academia as it is in public accounting, and the accounting profs you had in college are way more fun than you thought. I had never been to Indiana University before this weekend. It's a beautiful campus, and the nightlife is pretty awesome, mostly thanks to a band called Rod Tuffcurls and the Bench Press. I can't remember the last time I had that much fun at a concert (well okay, I saw Taylor Swift in July in Zurich, and that is hard to beat.) I certainly didn't get any homework done, but an A on my stats homework isn't going to be the deciding factor in a job 5 years from now anyways!

Week 2 - Labor Day Weekend - September 2, 2024

Holiday weekends hit just as hard as they did in the professional world, except maybe even a little better when you're caught up on homework. Instead of stressing about a client meeting the next week or a silly deadline looming (there's no such thing as an accounting emergency after all), I truly got to relax at the cottage up north for Labor Day weekend. Often times over the last 10 years, these weekends have been overshadowed by too much drinking (again, I'm pretty open!) That seems to be a pretty common theme for the public accounting profession, as a way to escape the stresses of the job. I was encouraged by a lot of the younger staff coming into the profession, as drinking didn't seem to be as big of a thing with them; I'm hopeful that's a trend that continues for the profession. For me, over the past month, it's been very refreshing to cut back so much on drinking - I'm simply not looking to escape in the same way I used to. Plus, leaving home at 6:45 AM multiple days a week to get to class by 8:30 AM is a pretty good deterrent too.

The Real Week 1 - Syllabus Week - August 26, 2024

I have three classes this semester. Which doesn't feel like much, but it's been a LONG time since I was in a classroom. Even longer since I took any math/econ classes. I took Calc 1 and 2 my junior year of high school in 2008. I took multivariable calc my senior year, in the fall of 2008. Micro and macro were freshmen classes at Hope, so 2009. I picked up a stats class in my sophomore year of college to round out a math minor, but again, we're talking 2010. I haven't had a class like these for 14 years. So for me to pass Mathematical Applications in Economics, Microeconomic Analysis, and Statistical Methods for Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economists, I have a lot of work cut out for me. Fortunately, apparently the grades don't matter, as long as I maintain a 3.0 average. And my professors seem very helpful and invested in getting all seven of us students into a good position for future classes!

I did make the mistake of trying to start and finish a house project the day before I started... I can't learn how to do house projects apparently, but hopefully I can learn Econ and math!

And I get to wear my Dunks on campus, so that's pretty cool too.

Week "1 to 3" - Pre-Class Introductions - August 5, 2024 to August 25, 2024

After a short four days of retirement, I was on campus Monday, August 5, 2024 to get situated with a new shared office and new laptop, and to get to work. A common phrase I heard throughout the day and that week was "welcome to academia..." Unlike public accounting, where they have your laptop ready for you on day 1, badges printed, access granted, and all your HR paperwork in order, higher education is apparently a little slower. With no laptop, no keys, and no record even in the system, it was a slow start. My parking pass wouldn't be ready until the week of classes; I wasn't going to get paid until September 6; I didn't even have a student ID to start taking advantage of student discounts while I was earning nothing! Fortunately, we had a summer symposium for the next few days, for which I needed none of that. Just a willingness to learn.

From there, a day of orientation with the other first-year accounting student, and we were off to the races, tasked with completing our first replication. Essentially, any research paper you read has data behind it to support the findings. In theory, anyone with access to the data should be able to come to the same analytical results as the author. This turns out to be a bit more difficult than anticipated, but after a few weeks of learning SAS through a coding bootcamp, I was able to get pretty close to the results of the assigned paper. And though I've dabbled with coding in the past, primarily VBA for Excel, this was my first time really diving into a program.

There are a lot of positive indicators, and while I'm trying to keep it in check, knowing the grass isn't always greener on the other side (hehe, go green!), I am very excited for the next five years.

• Just like in public accounting, free lunches are plentiful and quite enticing.

• MSU has one of the top managerial accounting programs in the country, and I am the only current student with an interest in that area, which will bring a lot of opportunites. In fact, I have already been given the opportunity to attend a conference at Indiana University in mid-September to see one of the MSU professors present a paper.

• I actually really like coding. I can't wait to understand the math and process, so that I can put my new coding skills to work solving problems.

Pre-Requisite Reading - Prior to the Start - 2013 to July 2024

How did I get here? After 10 years in public accounting, I hit a bit of a personal mental health crisis. I'm pretty open about it and always willing to answer questions. In short, I had hit a very low point in September 2023 and did a 2-week outpatient program at a mental health facility, working on coping mechanisms during the day while still living out my regular life during the evenings. It was at this point where I realized public accounting was not the end goal for me. I had a great team. I loved the type of work I was doing (there isn't much more exciting in the accounting world than investigating fraud.) I was making really good money. The flexible time off allowed me to do a lot of travel with my wife. I mostly worked from home with my dogs. But I wasn't happy.

I don't know that this new career will make me happy either. But it's a risk worth taking. The best days of my public accounting career were the days I was participating in on-campus recruiting. There's something about a college campus that I find energizing. I always wanted to be a professor, and even had the opportunity to teach a class at my alma mater, Hope College, in the spring of 2024. I had always looked at it as a retirement gig, but had an epiphany during my low point - why wait my entire life to retire and do something I love?

That's when I started applying to PhD programs. As luck would have it, I was accepted to Michigan State University in January 2024. Graduating from high school, my top two schools were Hope and MSU. My entire family went to MSU, and I grew up going to football games (through the very bad and somewhat good years). This just felt right. So in April 2024, after many discussions with my wife, we decided it was time to take the plunge. We decided on a final end date of my public accounting career of 7/31, just shy of my 11-year work anniversary, and here we are today!