SFM Student Experience

On Episode 8 of SAF Ready the Podcast, Sam welcomes Ethan, president of the Sustainability and Financial Management (SFM) Student Organization at Waterloo, to explore our unique undergraduate program that combines sustainability, accounting, and finance to balance profit and purpose.

From why he chose to join the first cohort of students in the SFM program to how he became involved with co-/extra-curriculars and clubs on campus, you’ll get a look at university life from a student perspective. 

 Learn more about the SFM undergraduate program: https://bit.ly/3Rvh0zH

Transcript

0:13

Hi, everyone, and welcome to SAF Ready the Podcast here at the University of Waterloo. On this podcast we have a variety of guests students, faculty and staff to let you in on all that the School of Accounting Finance has to offer. I am Sam, and I am your host. We want to ensure that you're hearing everything that you want to know about the School of Accounting and Finance. So after listening to episodes, feel free to DM us on our variety of social chains, as well as sending us an email at saf@uwaterloo.ca with any more questions, topics, or people that you want to hear from? Tune into our new next episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Honestly, any platform that offers a podcast you can most likely find us. Today we have Ethan joining us. He's a current sustainability and financial management student, and he's going to be giving us some insights on the program and all of its benefits. Hi, Ethan. Thanks so much for coming in. No problem. All right. We're going to get rolling. So the age old question, which I do almost every time, is tell me about yourself. That right. Nice little interview question. So I would say that obviously I am a 2B student here at School of Accounting and Finance. I've had a variety of co-op opportunities, not only in accounting and finance, but also in the sustainability and ESG space. Along with that, I also typically when I'm when I'm outside the day, you know, outside of doing schoolwork I’m the president of the SFM Student Organization. Oh really? I didn't know that. I thought you knew that. No, he didn't do that. I am the president of the SFM student organization. That is my one extracurricular where it takes up a lot of time. I can imagine. Yeah, that's my main, main extracurricular. And besides that, I do a lot of reading, and that's about it. What made you choose SFM? And besides that, I do a lot of reading, and that's What made you choose SFM? What was kind of like your thought process going in when you were first applying in grade 12? Absolutely. So I actually originally applied for the AFM program. Okay. That cohort where we got into the AFM program and this was before the SFM program was announced. Yeah, I got into the AFM program Okay. Like a month and a half before we started Blake Phillips, which is now the director of the School Accounting and Finance, and Michael Wood, who is a professor in the School of Enterprise or Environment Enterprise Development. They got to do a video call with us and pitched this new program called Sustainability and Financial Management. Okay. Basically, like the way they pitched it was this is where the world is moving. And so they they actually went on and they showed us, like on the Reuters website or if you go on like CNBC, there was like sustainable, sustainable, sustainable finance or sustainable business like news sections and this is turning into like a big part of the business finance and accounting landscape. Yeah, kind of how they pitched it to us. And so I guess one of the big reasons that I chose SFM as opposed to continuing in my case, I would have went into the AFM program was just like that is kind of the future and it's even more like in the industry now. It's even more prevalent than it was when I came into the program. Yeah, I keep hearing a lot of things about people wanting to more like Green footprint and like, but also like, you know, we're all people who want to make money. So it kind of having that combo. So it's it's striking that balance. So it's a big it's definitely. And so I kind of recognized that when I like when they first started pitching this program to us. Yeah. So I can see. And so I did some of my own research and I just decided that, like, you know, these problems are really big and I thought that this was going to be a great opportunity to help solve them in the future. Yeah. That is kinda why I chose SFM, as opposed to AFM. Oh cool. I didn't know that you were like part of the, like, the original first cohort. You were like the pilot. The pilot cohort. That's so cool. Yeah. Like, we were we were designated as, like, as Accounting and Financial Management students before. Oh okay. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. So now it's like, fully a program and, like, everything. So I know, like, for students who are like, Do I have to do this personally when I. No, no, no. It's now like a fully fledged program that you can apply directly to when you're going through that whole application process. But that is so interesting. I was curious how they like, I never know how they like launch new programs. So it's like an interesting thing that they kind of go through like what the faculty that they originally were like, Hey, so we actually have this new thing. That is literally exactly how it happened. So that's yeah, it was pretty much just like we're doing this new thing. You can join if you want. And so we sent in applications and then they took. Okay, cool. Okay, Got you. So that kind of like, perfectly moves into the next thing, which is like, I guess you did kind of answer it, but if you want to give like a more concrete answer to like what your explanation of SFM is. Sure. Yeah. So explanation of SFM is probably it's a little broad and that's mainly because I find there's like so many aspects to the SFM program, yeah. For example, if you look on like the finance side, it's really focused on how can you integrate ESG and sustainability factors into investments. To make sure one, they retain their value and two, okay, you're not exposing yourself to undue risk in those areas. Yeah. If you look at the accounting side, it's all about reporting. Oh okay. So like the new ISSB standards just came out about a little little under a month ago. Yeah, Jennifer mentioned that. So those S1 and S2 and so basically like on the accounting side it's looking at we can get into more later but it's essentially like there's, it's like accounting. Yeah. The same principles I would say. Except it's related to ESG and sustainability. Okay. As opposed to financial metrics. Okay. Gotcha. I would say. But then there's also like a strategy component to it. Like, so in some of my co-op terms and even we're doing a sustainability consulting course. The new. Yeah. cool. Sustainability consulting, integration or integration or the Sustainability Integration Consulting Group. Okay. Gotcha. It's an SFM course through the university and we actually get to go out and help an organization in, typically the GTA or the Waterloo region and we'll go out and will help them integrate sustainability into the organization. That's so cool. It's not like so it's not like directly accounting. It's not directly finance, but it's very like it's kind of just overall ESG strategies. Really what SFM is, is it helps you integrate all of these financial and business factors in all these sustainability factors into just finance, business and accounting and being able to do that in a comprehensive way. Yeah. Helps business leaders, helps business owners, helps, you know, just any kind of stakeholder and investor. Yeah. Be able to make better decisions in the business environment. Yeah. I think I always think of it like from how I've been like, described to it and like talking to Jennifer and talking to you, it's like it feels kind of like you were there was originally two people. There was someone who was like very knowledgeable in environmental sustainability, and there was a very obviously, like, very involved in accounting and finance. And you made and one person. So now you can do the job of two people. Exactly. That's pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of how I think about it. A better explanation that I just gave, is really drawn out, that’s probably more concise, honestly accurate. Yeah, I feel like it just kind of took the components and then you have both the knowledges. But yeah, so I guess you kind of moving into like more of like the job stream. I think obviously like with it being a newer program, a lot of our like incoming or prospective students are always interested like, what can I do with this? Like what does I like? And you kind of like touch on a little bit. So like, are you able to pursue like accounting and finance within SFM? Yeah, So I would say you can definitely, I would say like a good chunk of the SFM students go on a traditional accounting or finance path. A lot of them will go and become staff accountants and, you know, maybe some of the big accounting firms and they will do audit work, they’ll do tax work. We will actually quite a few people who do it tax right now. Okay. And honestly, like there is some transferable knowledge from the SFM program because there's a lot of tax incentives. Yeah. Like, you know, sustainable either like, you know, vehicles, buildings, you know? Yeah, yeah there’s lots of tax incentives. But so there is some but a lot of but it's just a traditional role. It's not, you know, like they're doing or some people want to go do investment banking or you know, the more finance roles. And those are just traditional roles. They don't really have an ESG component to it. But then I would say SFM students are uniquely just kind of qualified to also enter into the ESG and sustainability roles. Okay, in these large organizations. So that really opened your doors to these jobs as well. So not only do you have, you know, the accounting and finance knowledge, but you can also go down this new path that maybe integrates the two, or it's just you can even just do like an ESG and sustainability co-op if you wanted. Yeah. Is directly just related to that. Yeah. So you know I think so that's kind of like the co-op opportunities that are available and your breadth of co-op opportunities especially, you know, when you compare it to some of the other programs where it’s like you can do everything, but you can also do more like yeah, like everything and more. Like, well, yeah. So you said, you mentioned that you're President of the SFM student organization. Is that what it’s called? Yes. Okay. So kind of like how did that become about like, did you like was it like an election process was like an application process. Like, I think a lot of students like to know how they can get involved in like student organizations when they get to school, because I know I did that too. So that’ cool. Student organization, very important. I feel like when you come on campus. Yeah, I would say SFM is unique in the way that like we already have fairly small classes. They're not terribly small, but you know, they're they're fairly small classes. And so the students are already so they all know each other. It is all integrated together. We all know each other, we are all friends with each other. And so we all like we all like, help supporting each other. So the student organization was kind of born out of that where, actually, some of our students started talking to Blake Phillips about, wanting a student organization or a student society, and that was kind of where the idea kind of came from. And basically so after that, we ended up launching of last October. Okay, so it has been almost a year. Okay, and yeah, so originally when new students come in, every term will have applications where students can apply to positions that we hold, we have a variety of teams and it will continue to grow as the program gets bigger and there's always more and more stuff to do. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we continue. And so I would say yeah, typically it's an application process and some of the we have like a board of directors as well for the, for the student organization. So have like our executive team, those are actually elections that you have to be elected into those positions. Yeah. That's cool. A lot of the other positions. Yeah. You just apply for them like you would a job or anything like that. That's cool. So you get like more of, like that student voice. So like you get to, like, really get to know the candidates, not just like they signed up because it sounded fun. Yeah. So yeah, we, we and we, and then we'll go through an executive team reviews all the application. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Okay, cool. Yeah. And I know that a lot of our like other I know that some of the students also are like involved in like SAF clubs too. Like, I know that like one of our other students that we had on for one of our webinar things is a part of like the main like SAF student society and stuff like you can like you don't have to just be exclusively to SFM. I think that's also something that also students are worried about. Is it because it's like a separate program, which is like not the case. I hear all about how you guys are like always integrated with AFM students and like activities, so still have that opportunity to be involved in everything that SAF offers to, not just as a member and also the environment faculty too, which also gives you like a little piece of both because I know that Jennifer wanted me to tell you about like how the environment faculty is like really also wanting to like, support SFM students too. Yeah, and I would agree with that. So like, yeah, so the way that of our student organization functions and a little bit different than the Accounting and Finance Association. AFSA is so SFM students can participate in AFSA, and we've talked with AFSA about that and our goal is to support just because it's hard for AFSA to support all of them, like all of all the, all the students, but also in our SFM courses, are so specific right? Yeah. That the goal, the goal of the student organization. Right. So we help support the community in SFM program. Making sure students feel a sense of community and they always have, you know, people there for them. But then they're also like academically, you know, to be able to support them through that sort of courses. Yeah, you know, there's, there's not a necessarily resources available through AFSA and so but yeah so Sustainability Financial Management students can go in and join any of the SAF clubs and on the environment side we participate in a lot of the environment. So we are, you know, we operate along with, along the side of the Environment Students Society. So, you know, there's lots of like collaboration there and we do a lot of collaboration on the School of Accounting and Finance side as well. So yeah, I know that's, that's really cool. Yeah, I know. That's really awesome. So yeah, definitely lots of ways to get involved. So definitely ten out of ten. Think about that. SFM students, current students. But yeah, well, thank you so much for coming. This was seriously informative. I'm I think I learn more about this program than I thought it was. And I'm like, Wow, write some notes. Like I should have been typing more, which I look like I'm able to learn some research. So yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for coming and we look forward to hearing more about SFM in the future. So yeah, definitely. Any questions that you have, I will absolutely direct those over to Ethan, so please feel free to let us know. But yeah, thank you again so much and thanks everyone for listening and tuning in.