July 2024
Ann Lamb discusses how you can build your study resilience through reflection and by envisioning where getting qualified can take you.
It won’t be news to our students that embarking on the ACCA qualification is a significant commitment. It takes many hours of dedicated study and succeeding in rigorous exams, not to mention being able to evidence the possession of essential professional skills and having the sufficient practical experience to call yourself an ACCA member. As such, a balancing act between work, life and study is all part of the journey that students must carefully navigate.
During an intensive study period, it can be all too easy to get caught up in the noise and lose sight of why you started that journey in the first place. So, from time to time, it’s important to refocus on the aspirations you had when you first signed up as a future member. And, equally, to look back on how the steps you’ve taken so far in completing the ACCA qualification have taken you closer to fulfilling those ambitions. Doing so will help bring you clarity on how your progress through the qualification is supporting you in your professional development and career planning.
Providing you with an important source of motivation to keep going and enhancing your study resilience.
Our latest professional insights reports highlight that those who achieve ACCA membership have endless career opportunities.
In a changing world that has made being a professional accountant more exciting than ever before, our future members are equipped with the real-world skillset and ethical values to be the strategic forward thinkers who thrive in this environment of continuous change. Capable of making an immediate impact in all types of organisations, public and private sectors, in industry and professional practice.
Just one way the ACCA qualification supports future members is by providing them with the digital skillset and ethical values to drive positive business change and build sustainable organisations. Ensuring those organisations act in the public interest and enriching society at large, through strong governance and the sustainable financial development.
Furthermore, the professional skills developed through all the elements of the qualification will support future members take a leading role in the biggest challenges facing businesses and governments today. Skills such as effective communication, data analysis and commercial awareness all framed by a sound ethical framework to realise the opportunities presented by artificial intelligence, respond to climate change and champion the natural capital and environmental, social and governance (ESG) agenda.
We have lots of resources to help future members in their career planning. One of these being our Career Navigator (https://careernavigator.accaglobal.com), which maps the specific aptitudes the ACCA qualification develops against current and emerging job opportunities. I’d encourage all our future members to visit the Career Navigator as part of their own reflections and forward thinking – it might just give you that extra ounce of motivation to make those career dreams a reality.
- Ann Lamb is ACCA’s Director of Professional Qualifications
