Beta Alpha Psi students excel at Oceania Best Practices Competition
Congratulations to our Beta Alpha Psi students who recently competed at the 2018 Oceania Regional Best Practices Competition.
Gilad Harel - Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting)/Bachelor of Laws
“As part of my Accounting studies, I joined Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) as a new member in November 2017 and was very fortunate to be one of six Monash Business School representatives at the 2018 Oceania Regional Best Practices Competition, held recently in New Zealand.
BAP is an international honour organisation for accounting, finance and information systems university students around the world. It was founded in 1919 in America; its premise is to give recognition to scholastic and professional excellence for students across these three areas of study. BAP is the premier leadership program for the Department of Accounting.
The international Best Practices Competition is sponsored by Deloitte each year with a global theme in which universities can nominate to present on three different topics. The 2018 theme was ‘Embracing the Opportunity’ and the topics were ‘Hands-on Engagement’, ‘Launching into the Next Century’ and ‘Branding Your Chapter’.
“This year’s competition was held at the Regional meeting in Wellington, New Zealand. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet like-minded students from across Australia and New Zealand. The aim of the weekend was not just to compete against one another but was to forge bonds, gain practical skills and engage with the community. We were fortunate enough to become close with students from University of Technology Sydney, University of Sydney, Deakin University, University of Melbourne, University of Auckland, University of Waikato and Victoria University of Wellington.
Some of the best moments of the conference were not the ones scheduled into the timetable, but the little moments in between. Having the chance to socialise with other participants, hearing about their stories and their lives back home was truly a pleasure. I will always look back fondly on the second night when the local Wellington members arranged a dinner for all the participating students.
We heard from inspiring people who spoke on a diverse range of topics, including the benefits of working in the public service, the rapid change of pace in technology, the perils and benefits of starting your own business and finally about a start-up company taking on the biggest financial institutions in New Zealand.
However, at the end of the day, we came to compete and we competed well! Fellow students, Brent Patterson and Elliott Batiste performed magnificently in their presentation about ‘Hands-on Engagement’, coming first. With that win, they are now heading to
Washington D.C. in August to compete at the Annual Meeting and I am certainly looking forward to hearing how the Americans fare against the boys from down under. Our past and current presidents, Mangala Prasetia Wen and Daniel Goodman, faced stiff competition in the ‘Launching into the Next Century’ category and although they did well, they did not place. Ellen Hawkins and I competed in ‘Branding Your Chapter’, and received third place.
We’d like to thank Dr John Webster, the Faculty Advisor who came with us on the journey to Wellington. Without his guidance and skill, our teams would not have been anywhere near as successful.
Next year, Monash University is hosting the Regional Meeting. It will be a challenging and thrilling role for the University following on from the success of the 2018 Meeting.
This event has definitely been a highlight of my time at Monash and I look forward to all that BAP has to offer in future years.”