Growing up in Peachtree City, a suburb south of Atlanta, Beth Allaire’s parents told her she could be and do anything she wanted. An active kid who loved dancing and swimming, Allaire dreamed of becoming a marine mammal trainer until she took a college-level biology course and realized how difficult that path would be.
She surprised her family as well as herself when she chose a career in accounting.
“Accounting was never on my radar,” Allaire said. “And I actually hate math. It was the last thing I expected to end up doing.”
As a high school student, Allaire amassed several college credits through a dual enrollment program with Clayton State University. By the time she entered Georgia State University, she had to declare a major. She decided to study managerial sciences at Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business because "business would open a lot of the right doors.”
She hoped to merely survive her required accounting course.
“I dreaded it,” she said. “I was so terrified of that class.”
So when accounting actually made sense to Allaire, she was shocked. Something had clicked.
“I knew how to speak the language,” she said. “Because I struggled with math so much growing up, I felt like I had cracked the code.”
After spending time in the accounting lab and learning from the teaching assistants, Allaire began to think she might have a future in the industry. Soon after that realization, she changed her major to accounting.
Allaire graduated in spring 2017 and spent the summer interning at Big Four accounting firm PwC. The following fall, she enrolled in Robinson’s Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA) program. Because dual enrollment gave her a head start, she was able to finish her B.B.A. and master’s degrees in four years—the time period the average student spends as an undergraduate. Upon wrapping up her MPA, Allaire moved into a full-time role as an assurance associate at PwC.
Allaire considers the community she found with professors—working CPAs or professionals with Big Four credentials—and peers who were on a similar timeline and path to an accounting firm to be one of the most valuable elements of the MPA program.
“It was helpful to talk to people about what they were doing. ‘Which exams have you taken? What are you studying for?’,” she said. “That would have been so hard on my own.”
At Robinson, Allaire met the CPA exam education hours requirement and intended to pursue her CPA license.
“The MPA program prepares you a lot for those exams,” she said.
Allaire is a manager for marketing and sales enablement at PwC.
However, over the years, the CPA pathway became less important to her. In fall 2020, she pivoted to PwC’s marketing and sales team and now is a manager for marketing and sales enablement.
Accounting gets a bad rap as a boring cubicle job, but Allaire points out that many top accounting firms also offer consulting and technology services.
“They are kind of everything, which lets you live the lifestyle of a consultant or someone who has this really flexible job while still doing accounting,” she said. “It’s such a nice benefit.”
A healthy work-life balance has allowed Allaire to explore hobbies like triathlons and ice skating. She also recently returned to her first love and earned her scuba diving certification. After six years at PwC, Allaire has earned a sabbatical, which she’ll spend diving in Australia.