The Start of Forever: Aloha 'Oe

My last semester of school brought with it hard trials, many final projects, several academic evenings, and most importantly, Graduation and the completion of my Bachelors of Science in Accounting.

I was invited to be a member of Phi Kappa Phi, an invitation only honor society that has been around for probably 150+ years. It is based primarily on academic standing and GPA, as far as I know you have to be in the top 10% of the class to be nominated. I was thrilled to be invited to join and, of course, took the offer (if only to put on my resume and seem smart).

The motto of Phi Kappa Phi is "Let the love of Learning Rule the World" which I think is awesome. If there is one thing I have learned in the last few months is that I truly love learning and always want to be learning something new. Another comment that was mentioned that night was along the lines of "The curse of having intelligence is having to deal with people who lack it," it was definitely my favorite statement of the night.

The next event was the Accounting department graduation banquet. They took the opportunity to give out awards, everything from 'The good Samaritan Award' ie. the person who isn't necessarily the smarted but is helpful and pleasant to be around, to the "Top accounting student".

I was awarded "Summa Cum Laude" that night - a graduation status based on GPA, which I was hoping I had managed to achieve. Another award that I was waiting for with anticipation was for a national test that all business majors were required to take prior to graduating. The test is called the Major Field Test, it simple tests to see how much information has actually been retained in your brain over the passed several years. Everything from Economics and Marketing to Accounting and Finance.

When I took it and got my score I felt like I had done pretty well, but I wasn't sure how they scored it because it wasn't a flat percentage but instead measured against the rest of the U.S. I had asked a few times how I measured up compared to the rest of the nation and the school but no one ever seemed to have the scores or any knowledge of the test for that matter. So the night of the banquet when they announced they were going to be giving awards for those who scored in the top 25, 15 & 10% I was excited to see if I had made the cut.

[Fellow Accounting Tudors also graduating]

For the top 25% award, one name was called. The top 15%, 2 or 3 names. The top 10% another 2 or 3 names, none of which just so happened to be 'Jessica Brown'. I was rather disappointed but figured, those who earned it definitely deserved it.

A few days later one of my professors called me over and asked if I had gotten that award at the banquet, I said no and he looked at me with a confused look on his face. I asked what was up and he told me that I should have gotten an award because I had the highest score of the whole accounting department. I thought I had done well, turns out I scored in the 96 percentile nationally. That gave me a boost of confidence that I could actually join the real world and not be completely behind in my knowledge.

Day of Graduation!

We had to be there at 7:00am, three hours early, so we could do absolutely nothing for two and a half hours while we waited for everyone to show up, then get in our lines and learned where to walk.

An Early Morning: A Wonderful last gift from the University after a week of finals.