Intro

So I decided I would make a blog about my trip to Sweden. I thought it would be a good way to document what goes down, especially since I am horrible at keeping a journal. So I’ll be posting pictures, videos, and stories here for anyone that is interested.

Right now I’m flying to Atlanta where I will get on my flight to Stockholm. So I don’t have any cool stories about Sweden yet, but I thought I’d have my first post be about how I got here and what has happened so far.

I’m majoring in Accounting at BYU and most of us in the program at BYU end up going into one of the Big 4 accounting firms. So I had to decide which city and firm would be a good fit for me. Since Chelsey and I don’t like the snow, we thought of California. And we decided we would go to Sacramento because it isn’t as expensive as LA or San Francisco and my parents live there. So then I needed to decide which firm I would go with. Last year I visited some firms in Sacramento to get a feel for where I would fit in and one of the major deciding factors for me was that KPMG made a global rotation seem much more plausible than the other firms – KPMG seemed to have more of a global focus. So when I got an offer for a Summer Internship from them, I accepted.

After I accepted my offer, I saw KPMG advertisements for “Global Internships” and I thought that sounded pretty cool, but I also thought that I had missed the boat because I didn’t know about it when I applied and got my offer. I also thought that maybe those types of opportunities weren’t available for a small office like Sacramento. So I didn’t think much of it.

But then on my birthday, February 26^th, I got an email from KPMG inviting all summer interns to apply for the Global Internship Program (GIP). I was so excited about it, but I knew that Chelsey wouldn’t be as happy as me. I told her that I thought this opportunity was my birthday gift from God and that it was something I could not pass up. Although she knew she would miss me, she supported my decision because she knew how much this meant to me. So I applied for the program with my first choice destination being the UK.

A week after applying, I found out that I had been selected for a phone interview. I found out that about 400 of the 1000 interns applied for the GIP and about 60 got phone interviews and that 15-20 would be selected for the program. I felt like the phone interview went well, but the day they were supposed to get back to us I kept checking my email and I wasn’t getting anything. So I figured that I hadn’t been selected and tried to move on. But later that night I checked my email again and I had gotten a reply. It said that I had been selected to participate in the program and that I would be going to Sweden! I was so surprised! And Sweden?? It wasn’t even on the list of participating countries. But I was so excited! So it turns out that the UK wasn’t able to participate this year, but Sweden came in late and said that they could, so I get to go there! And it’s perfect because I am a quarter Swedish, so it will be cool to go to the land of my ancestors.

So I started my internship in Sacramento, went to a week of training in Orlando, went back to Sactown to work on the audits of Sunsweet and Blue Diamond, and now I’m here – on my way to Stockholm. I just think that KPMG is so cool for providing this opportunity. I’m not even a full time employee, but they’re investing a bunch of money in me for me to go to Sweden for a month. And especially during these tough economic times, it is really cool that they kept this expensive program going because of their commitment to being a global firm with global employees. So thanks KPMG!

So that’s my introduction! I hope that I didn’t bore anyone, but I promise that my future posts will have pictures and stories to keep your interest. Thanks for following my trip to Sweden! If you have any questions, feel free to post them and I’ll respond.