My Experience at the PwC Case Competition

The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Case Competition was one of the best experiences of my life.

Why? Because it was challenging. It challenged my public speaking skills. During the first semester of my sophomore year, I just started at the University at Buffalo and I was scared. I was in a huge school, a huge business program, and I just wanted to be happy, relax, and fit in. I did not do much extra-curricular wise (except music) because I wanted to focus on my grades and making sure I received a solid foundation in accounting.

However, as the semester flew by, my accounting professor approached the class with a case competition announcement. Professor Anderson announced that PwC was coming to UB to host the competition and it would be a great way to improve team-working and public speaking skills. At first, I shrugged it off. I mean, I wanted to RELAX this semester. But, Professor Anderson kept announcing the competition in my accounting class and, at the last second…

I signed up.

I do not regret signing up. It allowed me to meet many professors at UB, the president of UBAA, workers at PwC, and even a campus recruiter at PwC! However, as much as I would love to go into deep details about my experience throughout the competition, my goal for this post is to mention the details that made the presentation successful.

First off, my team and I worked diligently to research credible facts to support our opinion on the case. Personally, if you truly enjoy and believe the topic you are presenting about, you and your presentation will appear more genuine and enjoyable. Since our research and facts closely matched our opinions, our presentation was relatable and genuine.

Also, through the case competition, my team and I practiced… A LOT. A couple of days before the competition, we practiced the presentation in front of PwC workers and, the day after, we practiced in front of a professor at UB. Afterward, they gave us tips on how to improve our presentation and things our group could improve on in general. Then, on the day of the competition, we met two hours before the presentation and ran through the presentation DOZENS of times. It was safe to say that, by the time our presentation came around, we knew EXACTLY what we were doing. The experience has taught me that PRACTICING IS IMPORTANT! Through practice, you become comfortable with the material you are speaking about and have some wiggle room to talk about other relevant topics.

Overall, the PwC Case Competition allowed me to gain a lot of knowledge of the art of public speaking and I am grateful that I was given this opportunity at UB!