The Shadow Knows

SPOTLIGHT

hen you want to learn what a job is all about, there’s nothing like spending a day shadowing someone who actually does it. So when Lillian Ceynowa at the AICPA’s Center for Public Company Audit Firms invited Troy Leonard to come to work with her, he jumped at the chance.

A senior hoping to study professional accounting and information systems management at Rutgers University in the fall, Leonard was most surprised by the role human interaction plays in the work of CPAs. “I had no idea accounting was so dynamic. It’s not just paperwork; it’s people dealing with people,” he says. “I sat in on some conference calls and they’re not just moving papers around; they were going over issues affecting the accounting profession and discussing changes that will touch everybody in the business world. I thought it was great.”