McKenzie Smith, OWJEF scholarship recipient c/o 2018, has spent her junior year working hard to pursue her dreams.
This past year has been a busy, yet fulfilling one. McKenzie was elected to be Chief Financial Officer of the Coalition of Black Students and was in charge of tasks like handling the annual budget and reallocating funds. She also served as a peer mentor to first-year business students and students of color, and on Student Leadership Advisory Panel.
In her spring semester, she worked alongside Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) at a local firm, Denman and Company, to prepare tax forms for the upcoming tax season. Over the summer, McKenzie interned with PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the Big 4 Accounting Firms, working on a variety of different projects.
McKenzie’s hard work more than paid off. She was voted ‘Junior of the Year’ for the College of Business and Public Administration at Drake and was also selected as one of 253 students in the Nation to be a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Scholar (PCAOB).
McKenzie was recently admitted into the Master’s of Accounting Program at Drake and will begin taking graduate classes in the Fall in addition to her remaining undergraduate classes. She will graduate in Spring 2022 with a BSBA in Accounting with a minor in Leadership.
McKenzie is currently a senior at Drake University. In the future, she plans to do another busy season audit internship with LWBJ, and graduate with her Master’s in the spring of 2023.
Good luck, McKenzie!