Personal Reflections on Studying at Santa Clara University

In today’s society, the use of technology to solve problems while also remaining sustainable and ethical is increasingly important. After I graduate from Santa Clara University in four months, I will be working at EY in assurance services and working on audit engagements for a variety of clients. An audit is an in-depth analysis of a system, process or an idea. Audits are required for all public companies and provide information regarding a company’s brand and aspects of an organization. Since accounting and auditing are very “rules” based, it might appear like design thinking would not be applicable to these functions in a business. However, assurance professionals often face a challenge of having a lack of creativity and critical thinking, especially when services are process-driven. In addition, there is a lack of open communication where firms work externally with clients and sometimes they do not fully understand the business. Although these challenges exist, accountants can utilize design thinking to help grow a business, employee engagements, and fully understand the needs and motivations of individuals and businesses. Professionals may achieve this by valuing ethics, utilizing databases to increase data sharing and efficiency, analyzing consumer needs, as well as applying programming in the accounting profession.

My Academic Experience at the Santa Clara University

The Design Thinking Pathway deals with the development of processes within systems that provide solutions to various problems. As an Accounting Information Systems major, I have taken several courses that utilize technology to show how many issues can be solved using theories, softwares and coding. The courses I took to fulfill my pathway were ECON 1 (Principles of Microeconomics), PHIL 6 (Ethics in Business), OMIS 105 (Database Management Systems), and OMIS 107 (Systems Programming). These four courses have enabled me to gain a practical understanding of how to apply these skills to my future career.

Assurance services exist to ensure that public companies are complying with regulatory demands and provide relevant information about a business’ financial performance. By providing this information to investors and the general public, individuals are able to make informed decisions. Auditors owe a duty of care to clients and third parties who rely on a client’s work. In this way, accounting professionals are required to follow several of the principles I learned in PHIL 6, Ethics in Business. Throughout this course, I studied the application of ethical principles into decision making. One of the main ideas this course focused on was Corporate Social Responsibility, a type of self-regulation that strives to be ethical and holds itself accountable to its stakeholders and the public. Ultimately, it is essential to use design thinking to grow a business and fully understand its motivations, while focusing on human-oriented values and the greater impact of designs in the process.

Design thinking may be applied to the finance or accounting department within every organization. These departments focus on meeting the needs of internal customers, which allows professionals to think about its structures, processes, and cultural norms. When I took OMIS 105, Database Management Systems, I learned about how essential it is for databases to be used in organizations, as they enable the company to function properly. Specifically, I learned how to create a complete database using Structure Query Language (SQL). Databases are increasingly important in the workplace today since they improve data consistency, enable data to be shared efficiently, increase the productivity of applications, and allow for program-data independence. Similarly, accounting professionals use a database where they can store and share thousands of spreadsheets for each client. This allows employees on an engagement team to access and collaborate on documents, which creates greater productivity and understanding on each team.

Design thinking is a process of problem solving that starts with understanding customer needs. ECON 1, Principles of Microeconomics, primarily helped me understand and analyze the consumer trends of supply and demand. While economics is concerned with the variables related to goods and services, accounting involves record-keeping. The two functions of business differ in terms of their motivations and outputs, but both help individuals in making informed financial decisions. When design thinking approaches are applied to business, creative innovation and success rates are significantly improved.

While it may seem like accounting and programming are two completely different topics that do not relate to each other at all, that is not the case. Nowadays, most people will hear “coding is a valuable skill” and that certainly applies to accounting. While excel sheets are most commonly used in accounting, learning how to write computer programs helps professionals achieve goals faster and with a much higher degree of accuracy. OMIS 107, Systems Programming, was the fourth class I took for my Design Thinking pathway. This course focused on how to use operating systems to manipulate files and processes. In this class I used shell script programming, which taught me how to write loops, use functions and import code, which introduced me to the technical aspect of business.

Conclusions and Reflections

Throughout many of the courses I took at Santa Clara University, I learned how to use technology to solve problems. For example, in my OMIS 105 final project, I developed a database for a fictional company. I used the skills I gained from class to design a database using SQL to create an effective database for a library. I used knowledge in Database Management and SQL to create a library database that organizes resources into different categories and records when certain items like books or computers are checked out by students or faculty members. Furthermore, I can apply my knowledge from Ethics in Business to analyze the stakeholders of a system to make sure all needs are being met and that the majority of individuals will be positively affected by the database. This project helped me integrate all the skills I learned in this class to create a database that is efficient, organized, and effective in storing data, which is essential in all businesses. I intend on using these technological skills as I pursue a profession in assurance services, to help clients grow their business and improve efficiency within employee engagements. In doing so, I will also make sure all requirements of a system or engagement are being met as well as providing support in the most ethical way possible.

Although I will be leaving Santa Clara in just a few months, I will be carrying all the knowledge and experiences I have gained at this university with me. As a future accounting professional, I am confident I will be able to apply these theories and methodologies into my future work on a team, while remaining ethical at all times.