Interactive Website Gives Students Real Life Experiences of a CPA

Highschool and college students interested in becoming accountants have a new online hub where they can experience the field first-hand.

The Start Here, Go Places. website, created and recently redesigned by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), was created to inform high school students about the range and breadth of careers in accounting. It also now features an Educator Resource Library for teachers.

The teacher section includes more than 60 classroom resources to further engage their students in the study of accounting. These new classroom activities reinforce accounting principles, highlight career options, and help prepare students for college – all vital to ensure their students’ success as a potential future CPA. Teachers can filter their site search by topic, difficulty, duration, and format, as well as access professional development articles. Upon site registration, the activities can be downloaded, printed, or saved for easy access next time a user signs on.

“Our research shows that high school teachers are important influencers of a student’s decisions to major in accounting in college,” said Joanne Fiore, AICPA vice president of professional media, pathways and inclusion. “The resources on the new section of the Start Here, Go Places. website make it easier for high school educators to engage their students and provide them valuable information about all the possibilities a career as a CPA provides.”

The redesigned Start Here, Go Places. website includes more than 100 profiles of real-life CPAs in public practice, industry, government, and academia. Students are able to enter information to create a ‘Future Me’ profile to help them envision a career in accounting. In addition, the site features an updated salary guide. The site also includes a wealth of resources for students making the transition from high school to college, including community college. Those include the ability to search and save information on colleges and scholarships.

The Start Here, Go Places. site also features Bank On It, an interactive game which puts the accounting principles and lessons learned in the classroom to the test. Played by more than 25,000 students in classrooms across the United States, Bank On It is a learning tool that utilizes real-life professional scenarios, provides incorrect-answer rationale, has tournament functionality and offers more than 1,400 different questions for students. Working with AICPA’s 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy Program, the game now includes a financial literacy version to reinforce financial management skills being taught in the classroom. With continual enhancements being made, Bank On It gives teachers an opportunity to incorporate game-based learning for accounting and financial education in the classroom.