The Department of Accounting has been hot for years. Its graduates and graduates-to-be never seem to have problems in attaining licenses or in landing a good job. For instance, the results of the 2005 national accountant license exam and accounting clerk license exam that were just released not long ago indicate that 19 TKU graduates and students had passed them. To top that, 165 of the 240 graduates-to-be have been snatched by the four heavyweight accounting firms in Taiwan: Deloitte, Touche & Tohmatsu (DTT), KPMG, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers respectively. Some of the students will have a hard time deciding which one to work for when graduation comes along since they have been requested by more than one firm!

The national accountant license exam is known to be difficult and the one in 2005 was no exception. The passing rate was 6 percent so the 19 TKU graduates and students that passed the exam are indeed outstanding and with so many students already receiving a job offer, Huang Cheng-li, the Chair of the department put down the success of his department as a balanced combination of theory and practice. This combination can be best illustrated in the special lecture series offered by the department in "Computerized Auditing", "Applied Accounting" and "Accounting Auditing", which invited experienced accountant as guest speakers.

Students who have been recruited by more than one firm offered their success tips. Wang Hsiang-an, for one, said that he was very careful in preparing his interview. He, who got 99 points in Accounting II, made sure that he reviewed all the basic and professional knowledge thoroughly in advance and predicted questions that he would be asked about so that he could rehearse them at home. As a result, he was offered a job by all firms except one--which he would have gotten had it not for a time conflict with the interview date!

The other student that has also been recruited by three of the four firms is Lin Chin-wei, the captain of the departmental basketball team, cautioned that it was vital to stay honest to what one knows during the interview. He pointed out that it was the potential and ability of learning rather than what one did not know that the interviewers focused on. He was very happy with his abundant opportunities and chose DTT, the biggest accounting firm worldwide, as most of his classmates, to work for when he finishes his compulsory military service. However, Cheng Cheng-fang, who chose Ernst & Young, not for its size but for its human aspect as she found the interviewers who are in the company's management very likable. (~Ying-hsueh Hu)