Allison Ciero says she fell in love with Saint Mary’s when she first visited campus.
“It was the (only) place where I could picture myself,” she said.
Ciero immersed herself in college, getting involved in softball, intramurals, student senate, and serving as an orientation leader. It’s also where she found her career path.
She started out as a business intelligence and analytics major as, she says, she’s always loved numbers. But once she took Accounting Concepts, the professor convinced her to consider double majoring in accounting.
“And now it actually looks like that’s what I’ll be doing post graduation,” she says. Following graduation, Ciero plans to get her M.S. in Accounting from Saint Mary’s and obtain her CPA and work for an accounting firm.
In fact, she’s just finished a few Saint Mary’s master’s level online courses and will be taking more as she has room in her schedule. Although she may have been intimidated by online master’s level courses at first, she said she’s enjoyed that they are self paced, and she can do the course work when it fits into her schedule. And, it gives her a jump start on getting her CPA license, which requires 150 credits before she can take the exam.
“I knew I wanted to study business, but I had no clue what I wanted to do post college,” she said. “Falling into that class freshman year turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It’s about being open to trying new things because you never know what’s going to be the one thing that clicks for you.”
