Crystal Wojcik, an honors student from Cheshire, Mass., is an MCLA admissions ambassador,
a peer mentor, and the president of both the Student Activities Council and MCLA’s
chapter of the National Society of Leadership & Success.
05/20/20
Last year’s recipient of an inaugural $5,000 Massachusetts Society of Certified Professional Accountants (MSCPA) scholarship is also this year’s winner of MSCPA’s first $10,000 scholarship. MCLA junior Crystal C. Wojcik, a business major with a concentration in accounting, said it’s an exciting feeling to know she’s received the highest scholarship from MSCPA two years in a row.
In 2019, Wojcik won the inaugural Barbara Iannoni Scholarship, named after the woman who established the Society’s scholarship program. This year’s award, the David J. Clarkson, CPA, Memorial Scholarship, honors a former longtime board member of both the Society and its Education Foundation. It is awarded to a student who has demonstrated academic excellence and financial need in the pursuit of a career in public accounting in Massachusetts.
Additionally, applicants must maintain a 3.5 grade point average (GPA) in all subjects required for their degree program, and a 3.2 GPA overall. They must have a positive and proactive relationship with a mentor anchored in the accounting profession and show a proven dedication to pursuing accounting as a career path, through internships, volunteer work, or other extracurricular activities.
Wojcik, an honors student from Cheshire, Mass., more than meets these requirements. She is an MCLA admissions ambassador, a peer mentor, and the president of both the Student Activities Council and MCLA’s chapter of the National Society of Leadership & Success.
She’s offered her skills through MCLA’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, and completed a summer internship in the Town of Adams Community Development Department, which led to a job offer. “The part-time job was an extension of what I was doing through my internship, and I also took on new roles,” Wojcik said.
Wojcik is now working to become a Commonwealth Scholar. “In the honors program, you have the opportunity to become a Commonwealth Scholar, and I’m in the beginning phase of writing an accounting paper for that. It’s a year-long research program with an April 2021 thesis defense date, and then, hopefully, a published research paper.”
Wojcik’s post-graduation plans include earning her master’s degree in accounting from UMass Amherst, sitting for the CPA exam, and becoming an auditor for one of the “big four” accounting firms. And, if the MSCPA creates an even larger new scholarship next year, maybe winning that, as well.
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Are you an MCLA student, alum, or faculty member? Do you want MCLA to share your story? Please email Creative and Brand Strategy Manager Francesca Olsen at Francesca.Olsen@mcla.edu.
