AFM students respond to your REDDIT questions - Khanh

Hi, my name is Khanh, and I’m a second-year Accounting and Financial Management student at the University of Waterloo, and today I’m going to respond to some common Reddit questions or opinions.

So, the first opinion is that all the students are too busy to make friends. So, I know that University can get really busy, but in SAF, there are a lot of opportunities for you to go out there and to make friends.

So, for example, you’ll be placed in what is called a SAF CREW in your first and your second year of University. So, a SAF CREW consists of four or six members, just like you, you know, first-year students just starting out this program. And what a SAF CREW could do is to, you know, go to class together, do group work together and etcetera, so you’ll be able to make friends on your first day of school.

And other than that, there are other opportunities to make friends, such as joining a club and, you know, participating in an activity or volunteering. So in my experience and in my first year, I joined the UW DECA chapter as a member, and we went to DECA provincials together, and I have to tell you it was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had in Waterloo so far. We were able to spend two days in downtown Toronto, just you know, doing case studies, networking, going shopping and having fun. And it was an amazing experience, and I made friends from there. So, there are a lot of opportunities for you to make friends within SAF and within Waterloo itself.

So, the second opinion is that AFM isn’t much different from other programs that focuses on economics. So, I’m not entirely aware of all the econ programs out there, but I can tell you about AFM. So, AFM offers you one degree with two areas of expertise, accounting and finance, and you’ll be able to take accounting and finance courses right in your first year. And I think that is extremely helpful in kick-starting your career and extremely helpful to my first co-op term.

So, beyond that, you could also pair your accounting and finance with a specialization. So, what it does is that it helps you dive deep into your accounting, in doing accounting and finance in the context of your areas of interest—for example, sustainability, financial markets, or business analytics and, etcetera. So overall, AFM offers you a really strong knowledge in both accounting and finance, and you’ll be able to use that knowledge to design your own, like, academic and career pathway. So, I really hope that answers your questions and have a day.