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When Emma Spoto imagines “accounting,” she pictures her father’s office for their family-owned catering company. He’s sitting at a desk reviewing sales receipts, expenses for food and supplies, and balancing the revenue.

Growing up on Long Island, Spoto often spent weekends pitching in with catering events. But while her culinary prowess has rarely extended beyond boiling pasta, the business side of her parents’ work has always fascinated her.

“I’m a numbers person,” she said. “I’m just a nerd who fell in love with accounting!”

Spoto joined the School of Management in her sophomore year to major in accounting with a concentration in management information systems. She is one of two SOM seniors chosen for . She graduated May 10, but plans to return to Binghamton in the fall to complete her Master of Business Administration.

All of Spoto’s experiences – the classwork, an internship at Deloitte and serving as president of ������Ƶ Women in Business student organization – taught her that appreciating the personal impact of her chosen profession is just as important as mastering the skills for the job.

“One of the reasons I knew this was the type of work I had to do was that, for being so much about numbers, accounting is a very people-facing job,” Spoto said. “People are making important decisions on how to invest their money based on your expertise, and there’s so much credibility that has to go behind that.”

But when Spoto started out in SOM, there was one little problem: apart from those experiences helping her family business, lifeguarding and babysitting, her resume didn’t include much to help her stand out as a contender for the career she aspired to.

That all changed after close collaboration with SOM’s Career Services team, which led Spoto to a summer 2023 internship with Deloitte and an offer to return there after graduation for a full-time job.

“I got to see a 10-K report firsthand before it was even published so that we could cross-check the numbers,” Spoto said of her internship. “There was something so rewarding about feeling that we played our own little behind-the-scenes role with a company going public.”

As a student, one of the roles Spoto is most proud of is her extensive work with the student organization Women in Business. She helps organize dozens of events for professional development and guest speakers, including PwC Vice Chair Kathryn Kaminsky and Denny’s CEO Kelli Valade.

“They reminded all of us that women can have a full-time career, still be moms or do whatever they want,” Spoto said. “There are some things you can’t learn in a classroom, so no matter how things might get difficult later on, it was truly inspiring to hear from them that ‘you can be a business leader.’”